Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Speaking of Balmy Heat….

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As in You’d have to be balmy to live in this place…. As we scribble, it’s 115 degrees in the shade of the north-facing back porch.

Holeeee maquerel!

Welp…that takes care of the Evening Doggywalk. Even after the sun goes down, the pavements will be too hot for Ruby’s little feet.

Guess I could go out for a Solitary Humanwalk….but yea, verily: even after dark, the heat will be oppressive.

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And speaking of balmy…. My son has hired a babysitter to watch me during most of the daytime hours!

As insulting as that is — what does he think I’m gunna do? Set fire to the swimming pool? — it’s actually rather pleasant to have the company. She’s a very nice and compatible lady. Not all that spectacularly educated…but hey! Focused enough and ambitious enough to build a reliable way to make a living despite limited formal education and second-language skill in English. I do like her, and hope to build some activities we can do together to build some serious rapport.

So I do hope she stays around, at least for some months or a year.

We shall see, though.

AMAZON!!

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Woo HOO! Thank the hevvins for Amazon and its insane home delivery!

As that paeon hints, their deliveries aren’t always perfect. But…in 110-degree heat, they sure do beat hiking down Main Drag West to the Sprouts, running around the store grabbing this, that, and the ‘tother; and then charging back through the heat to the Funny Farm!

My GAWD, it’s hot out there!

The back-porch thermometer says it’s only 105 in the backyard (with high, thick clouds in the offing…). Wunderground claims it’s 107. WhatEVER. It’s too hot and humid for human life, IMHO.

Anyhow, Amazon’s delivery guy just showed up with the pool floater I ordered. Didn’t bother to ring the doorbell, but fortunately I spotted his truck when he pulled up to the house.  So now we can re-load the chlorine in the backyard drink–without having to hike halfway to Timbuktu to get to the pool store.

My son’s having kiped my car is…well… I can think of a number of terms, all of them highly unflattering. But the long and the short of it is…UNHOLY INCONVENIENCE. When you live in an L.A.-style city like Phoenix, you NEED a car to get around, even to the most minor and relatively close destinations. Especially in 110-degree heat.

The Uber guy across the street would have charged me through the wazoo to drive over to the pool store and back. So…at least now we have the chlorine floating gadget. And we’re not bankrupted. Quite.

That’s something.

I guess. 

…and WHERE did my marbles go????

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If there was ever any question of whether I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, we just resolved it.

For the love of GAWD! I just stumbled in the house after walking home from the shops down on the corner of Main Drag South and Lunatic Road West. Whatever was the MATTER with me that I betook myself on a safari like that????? In the freakin’ middle of the afternoon???!?

Whatever marbles I might have awakened with this morning apparently rolled out my ears by the time I took off on that expedition. When we say “stupid,” we mean STUPID.

Hey. All I wanted to do was go into my favorite cheap liquor store and buy a bottle of more-or-less palatable cheap white wine.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Even on a hot afternoon… Forgodsake, it’s only 105 out there just now. And for lovely uptown Arizona, that ain’t very hot.

Thought I was gunna DIE by the time I staggered in the front door!!! HOLEEE mackerel, is it hot out there!

Wunderground tells us it’s NOT that hot: only 102º….and no, for Arizona, that ain’t very hot. BUT….we’re also informed that we have 15% precipitation. And yeah…that is fairly damp for lovely uptown Phoenix.

Y’know….  If my son weren’t here, I’d be in San Francisco — where I belong — right this very minute.

And really: when my idiot parents decided to move to Sun City — dragging me into Arizona with them — I should have had enough sense to say Hell No I Won’t Go!!!!  And if I’d had that much brainpower, chances are very high that yes, I’d still be home in the Bay Area, whither my maternal relatives emanated.

But no. I didn’t have that much sense. And so now I’m paying the Stupidity Tariff. 

So…yeah. Where did my marbles go?

I dunno.

If I knew where they went, I would dig them out from under the bed…or wherever they rolled. But…they don’t seem to be there. 😮

Marbles….marbles…  Well, with them or without them: I hate Arizona!!! And if I could find a way — any way, anyhow — to get away from this place, by damn!  I surely would!

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again!

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Holeee maquerel! It’s just like freakin’ Saudi Arabia out there, on the shores of the horrible Persian Gulf! Hot, wet, gray, and SOGGY SOGGY SOGGY!

The Dawg and I just returned from our morning perambulation of the ‘Hood. Honest ta Gawd, I thought I was  gonna expire before we got back from that (not-very-lengthy) stroll! It’s hotter than Hell, wetter than an active shower stall, and…ENDLESS.

We finally stumbled back to the house. As we scribble, the dawg is trying to ingest about a gallon of water out of her bowl. I’m drenched in sweat and do not feel like getting up and throwing myself around preparatory to the arrival of a nuisance cleaning lady…oh, wait!  It says here we’re at SUNDAY! 

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! I’ve been imagining it was Monday!

Huh! Maybe I can persuade my poor son to come over to dinner. Or even take him out to a nice restaurant dinner….  He may have other ideas. But that’s OK. Can’t hurt to ask, eh?

If it’s raining, we won’t be grilling anything. Hmmmm….  What CAN we decoct? Pasta, probably: that’s always easy and usually edible.

EW! It’s supposed to reach 102 degrees today…at 45% humidity!  

Talk about feeling like Saudi Arabia. Horrible!

This is really unusual weather for Arizona, though. It’s VERY rarely this wet. What used to be routine in unlovely Saudi Arabia is essentially nonexistent here.

What a ghastly place to live that was. Can’t imagine how my poor mother survived nine unholy years in that gawdawful place. Her health wasn’t great to start with. But that my father would put her through a decade of misery like that…wow!  Was he mean, or was he just stupid?

Oh well. That was their problem. Today is my problem.

Pray, if you will, that the air-conditioning doesn’t go out today! 

😮

The Great Clothespin Caper

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Well, I finally got a box of wooden clothespins ordered up.…received, and hidden inside the garage. So that little caper is resolved.

Yeah: Believe it or not, some a$$-hole actually STOLE THE BAG OF CLOTHESPINS that hung off my clothesline. No kidding!

The clothesline resides in the shelter of the side porch, on the west side of the house. Some sh!thead workman who was at my house lifted the clothespins and made off with them the other day.

Thank the Heavens for Amazon!  Since I’m no longer allowed to drive a car, I would be out of luck, since there’s no way I could walk to a local dime store or Target to buy another batch of clothespins. Can you imagine?

This new collection will have to reside inside the garage, adding another small layer of inconvenience to the Hassle Factors that now, more and more, characterize my daily life.

But just think of that: I actually have to hide my clothespins to keep some clown from stealing them!

Y’know, it’s the kind of thing I would have expected when we lived in Saudi Arabia. There, Americans (and Europeans…and any other aliens) were regarded as depraved and godless heathens. The locals felt entitled to steal anything that wasn’t red-hot or nailed down. But here? In the land of the free, the home of the brave? Clothespins???? 

Jeez. If you’re gonna steal something, steal something that’s worth some cash.

{chortle!} Speaking inconveniences inflicted by the army of workmen: One of the turkeys, for reasons I cannot imagine, hauled my gas barbecue off its brick stand, hauled it out into the middle of the backyard and LEFT IT THERE, parked in the dirt.

Well…it’s already 6:30. Ruby and I had better get going on the morning’s dog-and-human walk. Pretty quick, we’ll have another army of nuisances at the front door…and if I don’t get a mile of walking in every day, this damned spavined hip freezes right up. Speaking of nuisances… 😮

Don’t get old, kids…whatever ya do!

Hotter than the Hubs…Again!

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It’s not really THAT hot out there on the (un)lovely back porch. But it feels hotter than the proverbial Hubs. My guess is that’s because the air is just saturated: 37% humidity. 

Could that really mean that more than a third of the air we’re breathing is …water????

Possibly. It feels like (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where we lived on the shore of the (hot, soggy!) Persian Gulf. There, some mornings would be SO humid you’d wake up to a clear blue sky and see rain pouring down in front of your window.

Ugh!

We’re not that extreme. Yet. I hope. But it sure is nasty out there just now.

Thank gawd for central air-conditioning. Real air-conditioning, not the swamp-cooling we had out there. The machines we have here actually do dry out and cool the air before blasting it into the house.

And that makes a summer afternoon here almost tolerable. Assuming you don’t go outside…