Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Out and About in Loony-Toonsville

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Lordie. Just ONCE for a whole day to go by in quiet, level-headed sanity!!

LOL! Unfortunately, you do not get into a car in these precincts and expect sanity of any kind to ensue. 😀

What a place!

So…the other day we had the excellent Haddox Electric over, doing battle with the latest Adventure in Homeownership. They got everything fixed…took two guys half a day of wrestling with the infrastructure here, so I figured their $400+ bill was fair and gave them a check.

This morning Haddox calls me up and tell me the check has bounced.

What??!? That account has several thousand dollah in it.

Call the credit union; confirm that to be true. The airhead I speak with, however, hasn’t a clue as to why a perfectly valid check would have been bounced.

Call Haddox; arrange for them to charge the bill on a credit card.

Hop in the car; drive to the downtown CU office, which is much less busy than the one on campus and seems to be inhabited by pretty experienced staff.

Traffic: fukkin’ HIDEOUS! Took forever to get down there. About halfway through this be-tangled journey, I realize I should’ve just gone out to the campus branch. The drive is further but the hassle factor is milder.

Belly up to the teller’s counter.

She says nothing was wrong with my check. She says it cleared.

We are mystified by their claim that it flubbed. But she, being a bankin’ type, is suspicious. She says to be careful that it’s not a scam:

a) That the call really did come from the beloved electricians’ office; and
b) What does someone who answers the phone call from me say is going on.

Drive and drive and drive and drive and drive through slums that grow direr as the days pass. Drive through the Old Neighborhood: the beautiful historic Encanto District. Think how much I miss my splendid house there, how much I miss my neighbors. How much I don’t miss the burglars and the wannabe rapists…ohhhh well.

Drive through a couple of neighborhoods where I imagine I might like to buy a house that could get me out of the clutches of Tony the Romanian Landlord.

* Realize there really isn’t another centrally located neighborhood as good as this one; certainly not one I could afford.

* Realize I have to resign myself to a Battle of the Wills with that Romanian bastard. Dayum.

Finally get home.

It’s 109 in the shade of the back porch…and 77 in the “guest room” where Ruby & I have taken refuge.

Every other room in the house is best described as “baking.” Hovering around 90 degrees. The AC is just not up to its job.

Ruby and I have been trying to sleep in the “guest” room. Problem is, a twin bed just doesn’t do the job for a human and a bodacious little dog. We have plenty of room on the queen-size bed in the master bedroom. But it’s hotter than the hubs in there.

How can I count the ways I don’t wanna buy another bed???

And what am I doing to do with the twin bed that’s in there? Which, we might add, was NOT a cheapie.

Well…how obvious is this???  Duh!

I call a couple of movers and have them move the twin bed out of the “guest” bedroom/defunct TV room into the master bedroom, and shift the queen-size bed into the “guest” bedroom.

Et voilà! Problemo solved!

Well. I’ll get on that later….

 

 

Brave New Annoyance….

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Lordie, am I ever tired of living in the Brave New World! Every which way from Sunday, you’re assaulted by electronic nuisances and hassles.

It’s 3:00 in the morning. I’m sitting here playing with my computer by way of passing time until the current spate of insomnia passes. It’s dark out. It’s dark in, mostly, except here in the bedroom where a nightstand light is glowing.

And what do I get serenaded with?

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Aaaahhhh SHEEE-UT! 

Get up and traipse into the office, whence the racket seems to be emanating. Shoof around. Several old cell phones are sitting there…is one them the culprit?

Check each one. Can’t find any way to tell, with some sort of gauge or screen or whatnot, which if any of them has a “low batt’ry!”

Plug in as many of them as I can find a cord for. One of them takes a round connector. None of the cords in there has a round connector. So I can’t attach them all. Nor can I tell which one is making the racket.

I guess if the damn thing keeps yapping, I’ll have to gather up all the portable whatnots and carry them out to the garage.

Why is this better than what we had in, say, 1950?  Is it REALLY so wonderful to have telephones that you can walk around with and distract yourself with while you’re driving that we need to be harassed constantly by the damn things?

Good Morning, America!

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Midnight: Weird noise outside.

What?  Pool equipment run amok? Air conditioner on the fritz? Juvenile delinquents frolicking?

Stumble outside. Cop copter is circling over the intersection of a neighborhood lane and Conduit of Blight Blvd. He flies up this way, then doubles back. Ugh.

Why DO I live in Crime Central, anyway?

Climb back into bed.

Dog wants out. Wouldn’tcha know it?

Lift dog out of bed. Follow her to the backyard.

* Cop copter is already gone. That’s somethin’, anyway.
* Wait for the dog to do her thing. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
* Neighbor’s AC is making the weird noise. Sounds like an expensive fix.
* Motion-sensitive backyard light is losing motion sensitivity. Does it just need a new lightbulb, or is that another expensive fix?

“Come ON, dawg!!”

*Scrabble scrabble scrabble scrabble…. Dog digs up quarter-minus.

Stumble back in the house. Lift dog back onto the bed.

{sigh}

Dog’s stomach is growling dramatically. Why did I imagine I wuz gonna get back to sleep?

Fed her…when? Around 6 p.m.

Helle’s belles. That was seven hours ago!

Do I really have to get up at 1:00 in the morning and feed the dog? And then let her out into the crime-infested night again?

Arrrrghhhh!

An Untitled Blog Post!

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Lookee here! Y’day I hit “Publish” for this thing. Never noticed before this morning — 6:53 a.m.! — that it had no title.

Aaaah senility! Ever entertaining!

***July 30, 2023***

Six p.m. and Wunderground tells us the balmy summer afternoon has cooled to 109 degrees.

Hmmm…oh yah? Let’s see what the real-world thermometer says on the real-world back porch: a balmy 111.

Well. That’s not so far off.

It’s enough that the back bedroom — what we might call the “master” bedroom, where the queen-sized bed resides — is down to 80, which is about the same as we’re getting for the “guest” bedroom, where Ruby and I have hunkered down on the twin bed. Until this evening, it’s been running at about 82 back here. Yes. At night.

A twin bed is hardly enough room for a human and a bossy dog. One of us is always at risk of being tossed on the floor. That room has been a little cooler than the back bedroom, partly because it’s smaller and partly because it’s right under the AC duct as it comes direct out of the rooftop unit. By the time the AC blast gets to the back bedroom, it’s gone another 16 feet through the superheated attic, meaning that the “breeze” coming out of it is noticeably warmer than the air that reaches the guest bedroom. Until this evening, actually, there’s been about a two-degree differential between the rooms. And trust me: when you’re feeling baked, 82 degrees is noticeably warmer than 80!

This evening, though, it seems a little cooler: I’d say the two rooms are about the same. So the hound and I are repairing to the “master,” where at least there’s a little more elbow room on the bed.

Jumping in the pool presents no solution to the fricaseeing issue. That water is  seriously as hot as bathwater. No kidding. And yes, I do like my bathwater hot.

The weather service has been promising rain all day.

Har har hardy har-har! 😀

We did have some light cumulus clouds late in the morning and for a short while this afternoon. They’re gone now, though. Now what’s up there are high, thin stratospheric clouds, the type that do NOT speak of rain.

That’s another way of saying it’s humid on top of the 110-degree-plus heat.

With any luck, it’ll be cool enough back here that I won’t have to position a table fan to blow directly on us. Turns out that when Ruby is loafing in front of a blasting fan, the wind dries her eyes out!

Ouch!

So the poor little dog has dry, red eyes that look awful and could not possibly feel much different. I’ve been dosing her, at the vet’s suggestion, with my own eye doctor’s expensively recommended eyedrops, stuff called iVizia.

It’s pretty good stuff. It helped my eyes significantly and quickly, and it seems to be doing the same for the pooch.

Weather service says that tomorrow we have a 47% chance of rain. Yeah: we’ll believe that when we see it, too. Temp is supposed to reach 106.

Reporting from the Hubs of Hades…

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6:45 p.m. and it’s 109 on the back porch. In the shade. Under a shade structure, inside the canopy of a hefty ficus plant.

****

And now, f’rhevvinsake it’s 7:54 p.m. and…and…what have I done to make an hour and 10 minutes disappear without a trace?

* Unloaded the dishwasher
* Reloaded with the current set of dirties
* Fed the dawg
* Sprayed hose water over all the backyard plants I could reach
* Intercepted a fraudulent-looking email supposedly from a church friend
* Clued church friend that her name and email are being taken in vain
* Heard back from friend: “This was not me.  I’ve even had this one sent to me in the past.  Not sure how they got my address but passwords are changed.  What a pain.”

Wondrous.

******

Fell asleep. It’s now 11:45 p.m. Awoke with a choking fit. Dayum! Thought this effing covid horror was about over! Dunno whether this episode was actually choking, or in fact another covid coughing fit.

Don’t see how that scamming attempt could indicate that the b*stards have any of my passwords. But tomorrow I suppose I should run down to the tech guys and have them help me change the Apple ID password. That really WILL be a PITA…of the first water.

And it’s unclear to me how a fake email purportedly coming from a friend indicates that anyone has any of my passwords.

On the other hand, I assumed the perp got my email from my website, since it uses my FaM address.

Ohhhh well. At midnight, I’m not up for fussing over that fragment of madness.

A Balmy Evening…

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…for the balmy, that is…  At 7:10 p.m. the thermometer on the back porch reads 109 degrees.

Hey! Ya can’t shovel heat!

Nary a sign of the summer rainstorms known in these parts as “monsoons.”

But it’s still a bit early for them. I think of monsoon as an August phenomenon. F’rhevvinsake, it’s only July 17.

These are the times that make the humans think 12 months of swimming-pool expenses are soooooo worth it! 😀 Into the drink this afternoon. Hop out. Shampoo hair in the hose. Return to the shack’s interior, where the AC system labors to hold the temp (in the coolest part of the house: the hallway) down to 80.

What a day!

Started with Ruby flushing Ratty out of the marjoram bed. Dayum! She almost caught the poor critter!

Later on: the Great Termite Project.

Exterminator came by. He didn’t think the infestation was too bad…yet. He sprayed the little gals where they were evident, and then laid down one helluva barrier all around the house’s foundation. I decided we should have him come back at regular intervals to harass the critters. Whenever the weather cools some, I’ll try to get him up into the attic (you’d have to be suicidal to go up there in this heat!). He didn’t think the girls have invaded there yet…he did show me where he believes them to be, and provided a pretty convincing argument to that effect.

We didn’t see the much-beloved Pool Dude this morning — Monday is his day to come around. We probably missed him while we were indulging in the dawn doggy-walk. The pool is positively pristine this evening, which it assuredly would NOT be, in this heat, had he not surfaced at some point today.

Wait, I know how to tell: did he retrieve the new pump pot filter basket I bought?

Checking….

Whoa!!! He did NOT!

Holee mackerel! That means His Cuteness never surfaced here today!

He must have had car trouble. Or the world collapsed on his head.

Fortunately, he’s done such a killer job on maintenance over the past few months that the damn thing looks clear and clean. So from a selfish point of view, that’s good. But..gosh…  I hope he’s OK…

Back to the subject of infestation: The roof rats are back.

One of them was actually brave enough this morning to shoot right across in front of me.

Cute little fellas. Too bad they carry such nasty diseases. Too bad they do rather more damage than one would like to cope with.

So I set out the traps. When last checked, they were no more successful than they’ve been in the past. But…that was checking their daytime performance. We shall see, come morning, how they worked during our little tenants’ night-time maneuvers.

Awwwww crapola: Cop copters buzzing around overhead.

Check that all the doors are locked. And…hooleee shee-ut! The front screen was NOT locked.

Ohhh well. Now we’re barricaded in: two deadbolts engaged on every exterior door.

Four-legged rats. Two-legged rats. Six-legged rats. What a place we live in!