Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Not-Too-Bright Walk!

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3:00 p.m. on a June day, here in hottest Phoenix: I stupidly take it into my feeble little brain to go for a stroll around the neighborhood.

Some of us, after all, really ARE “not too bright.”

At least I had the brainpower to leave the little dawg home. The scorching sidewalks would burn her feet right off!  Eeek!

Seriously: it IS magnificently hot out there (as in “hotter than the hubs of Hades!”) and Ruby’s feet would have been royally singed if I’d been stupid enough to take her with me.

Other than baking my brains, though, this afternoon’s stroll seems to have done little damage to the human. But…uhmmm…say, Stupid…next time remember to wait until after the sun has set!

😀

Really, at this time of year — mid-summer in lovely Phoenix — the best and maybe the only time of day to take the dawg for a walk is right about at dawn. It’s already (well: still) hotter than Hell at that hour, but at least the sidewalks are relatively cool — not having baked in the sun all day. By evening, the sidewalks are horizontal frying pans!

Truth to tell, though, I seem not to be getting enough exercise. So…in upcoming days and weeks, Ruby and I will need to go out the door right at dawn. This will send us around the park — or at least around several city blocks — and get us back to the Funny Farm before the pavement heats up.

Arizona. What a place! Not designed for humans…

Yipes!!!!! Hotter than the Hubs…

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Yesh. Hotter for sure than the Hubs of Hades. Just now — coming on to late in the afternoon — it’s A HUNDRED AND NINE DEGREES in the deepest shade of the north-facing back patio. 

Augh, I say to that. AUGHHH!

Sooo…Ruby and I are trapped in the house, at least until the sun goes down.

More likely, until it comes up tomorrow.

I’m totally wilted, and probably should take a nap. But it’s after 4:00 p.m.  If I flop down on the bed now, it’s likely to be midnight before I wake up. And then I’ll be awake for the rest of the night.

😀

Well. That might be a slight exaggeration. But the truth is, it’s pretty much too late for napping now.

So, I reckon the Human will loaf in front of the computer until something resembling bed-time. Then hope for a decent night’s sleep.

Do need to get Pool Dude over here to check on the workings of that contraption. But later. Much later. Tomorrow, for example…

My son dragged me out to the Mayo this morning. GAWD, do I ever hate going to doctors.

LOL! Then, to my astonishment, he took it upon himself to answer some of the doc’s questions and to try to describe my ongoing nuttiness. 😀 That poor doctor!  

Ohhh well. He now has no clue to an accurate report of what’s going on with me. But that seems not to matter. Either he realized that, or he didn’t think whatever my body is doing is very significant. Didn’t order any tests. Didn’t ask me to come back.

RUN!

AWAY!!

{chortle!}

Anyway, it was an annoying traipse, but I felt like I got away pretty much Scot-free. Hooooray!

And…now, at 4:00 in the afternoon, it’s 109 degrees out there in the back yard. Too hot even to jump in the pool!

No doubt, too, the pavement will be too hot for Ruby’s little paws, even after the sun goes down. It can stay unbearably hot here until well after 10 p.m.

So I guess today’s doggy-walk will have to wait until tomorrow morning, along about 5:00 a.m.

But whenever the sun goes down this evening, it’ll be into the drink for the human!

Lunch at the ‘Que…

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Got a steak and an ear of corn on the grill. But.. WTF? They don’t seem to be cooking!

It is horrifically hot out there in the backyard. The meat and corn oughta cook by themselves: just set ém out on the back table, eh? But they’re hardly browning…surely not charring, that’s for sure!

Hm. The grill is on. There’s plenty of propane. But it’s barely running.

Guess I’ll have to put this stuff on the stove to cook. Then call the BBQ guy to come fix…whatever’s wrong with it.

Goodie! Just what I wanted to do on a 100-degree day!

Hotter’n the Hubs!

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Wunderground claims the temperature here in lovely uptown Phoenix is a balmy 93 degrees.

Hah! They must be CRAZY! The thermometer on the back porch reads HOT HOT HOT!

Hmmm…actually, it says 93 degrees. Yep. Right there in the shade. Barely on the high side of warm….

Must be a little humid today. Hmmmm…12 percent. That’s not bad.

Whatever: if feels hotter than hot out there.

Just got back from a stroll around the park. Thought I was gunna damn near melt before the Funny Farm’s front façade loomed into view. Good thing I didn’t take the little dawg with me. That asphalt pavement would have singed her feet right off.

Actually: I would have had to pick her up and carry across each road. Neither option much fun!

Guess I’d rather be in San Francisco….

Yeah. Today, so we’re told, we’d be looking at a high of 62 and a low of 52 there. Partly cloudy tonight. Tomorrow: Sunny, with a high of 66 and a low of 53. Looks like they expect that to be pretty consistent all week. With rain, off & on.

Rain? Rain??? Whazzaat?

Loafing through the past many hours, I haven’t done the main projected task of the day:  Wanted to run by the young lawyer’s office up by the El Rancho supermarket. The plan is to review the croak-over plans to be sure M’hijito gets Everything….and then some.

Seriously: I want him to get everything I own, with as close to zero hassle as possible. This will include real estate holdings as well as cash dollars and such. Not complicated — at least, I don’t think so. But I figure we’d better be sure everything is set up correctly.

Gawdlmighty, I hate this bureaucratic BS. But guess there’s no way around it.

At any rate, I spavined my left heel this morning. Hurts like the dickens. So…that lets out strolling up to the next big intersection and hiking around the shops there in search of Young Lawyer. If my son hadn’t made off with my car, I’d still be able to set up this part of his inheritance. But…hey…ya get what you ask for, eh? 😉

The car won’t make up for the jillion bucks in cash. But…it’ll be something. I guess. 😀

 

 

 

Let Us Try Again…

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So…ahem!  What happens if we post another test entry? Or…what the hell: a WHOLE, REAL entry for Funny about Money???

Okay: testing, testing! 

****

Today we’re enjoying another Day from Hell. 

My poor son is so frustrated with me and so mad at me that he can barely manage to be civil. Yea verily, at times he can’t rise to that stratospheric height.

And I don’t blame him. Forgodsake, I can hardly remember my  name. I keep getting things confused. I keep fu*king things up. Everything I touch or even so much as think about goes KERFLOOIE!

And I’m starting to get really scared. Like, REALLY scared. 

Never before has the entire goddamn world gone bzzzzzzzz for me. Everything is confused. I can’t remember things. I lose things. I forget to pay bills. It’s a freaking ASTONISHING mess.

***

Wonder Cleaning Lady is here, wrestling with the pigpen. She’s a truly delightful and amazing person.

Honestly: at this point I don’t know what I’d do without her!

I  need to go to a grocery store, but dare not traipse through 100-degree heat on foot: eight or ten blocks each way. I probably could order something online…but in the past have discovered that is not a real successful way to get what you want.

Americans don’t eat a lot of fresh produce. When you order a delivery, you have to ask for packaged stuff: things that a person doesn’t have to pick out. Ask for fresh vegetables or fruit, and what you get is ick. Yeah: inedible ick.

So the only way I can get the kind of food I normally eat — largely fresh produce — is to go to the store and pick it out myself.

And…if I can’t do that, I’m in a pickle.

An inedible pickle!

Might ask her to drive me to a store…but that seems a little much. She’s spent hours cleaning this place….and now I want her to chauffeur me around?

Don’t think so….

WHOA!!!!! 

Lookee here! Sprouts opens at 7 a.m.!!!!

Holeee shee-ut! 

Even in the current weather, at that hour the air will be cool enough that I could get up there and back without succumbing to a heat stroke.

Jeez! Who knew?

Okay, let’s think about this….

If I left here at 6:30 — maybe more like 6:40, actually — I could get there just as they open. I do have a little-old-lady’s rolling cart(!!). So if I dragged that over there, I could load the groceries into it, get out of the store by about 7:30 a.m., and reach the house at 8:00.

It would still be on the low side of unbearably hot by then: no question of it. But…it wouldn’t be suicidal yet! I probably could get a pile of food and household stuff and get back here before the heat would be enough to make me sick.

Looks like temperatures are expected to be around 79 to 82 degrees at that hour.

Yeah. That’s tolerable. But yeah: I will have to shoot out of the house at dawn.

Goodie.

And as we scribble?

A hot, heavy wind has blown up. It’s roaring around out there.

That is NOT something you wanna be strolling around in. So that obviates trotting to the store this evening…even if that was something I wanted to do. Which I sure as Hell don’t….

So…hmmm…. Will I be able to BBQ tonight? Wanted to cook up the salmon my son bought for me a couple days ago.

Doesn’t look like it. But…one never knows.

Wait until Wonder-Cleaning Lady leaves and then decide, I guess.

And if this weather obviates grilling? Hmmm…  Well…there’s pasta…that’ll do the job, I reckon.

***
AUGH!!!!

Just to make everything perfect, Wonder Cleaning-Lady reports that the damn vacuum cleaner is busted.

I fiddle with it. I dork with it.

Yep. She’s right: it’s not working.

With no car, tomorrow I’ll have to DRAG it to the appliance store. Won’t that be fun!  While I’m dragging a shopping cart, too.

Okay. Let’s tempt a little fate and see if this post will go online….

 

 

Another Fine Day in Southern California

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Holy mackerel!  THIS is going on right in the vicinity of where my parents and I lived in Southern California. Really: it’s right down the road from where our apartment building stood.

My father would have been at sea, of course — he was an oil tanker captain. But by now my mother and I would be at her grandmother’s house in Berkeley: several hours’ drive away from the present scene of the drama.

Apparently thousands of people have been evacuated from the region. Or relegated to shelters…doesn’t that sound like fun!  My mother would have been terrorized!

My father, o’course, would have been off at sea. So she and I would have been left to cower at home…or to jump in the car and start drivin’ drivin’ drivin’.

Kinda doubt she would have betaken us to a motel. Most likely she would have driven up the coast to the relatives’ house in the Bay Area, and we would have camped with them until the drama subsided.

Mighty glad not to be in that melodrama this afternoon!

Unclear how long this is gonna go on, or how much risk of a real catastrophe exists. If it were me, though, I’d be sooooo far outta there! That’s for sure!