Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Totally Not in the Mood!

by

LOL!  A passel — and we DO mean passel — of annoying chores awaits the Human’s attention this a.m.

How can I count the ways that I don’t wanna…

  • Pick up the kitchen
  • Wash the dishes
  • Make the bed
  • Walk the dog
  • Figure out what’s wrong the the computer this time
  • Drag the garden hose around
  • Wash my hair
  • Clean the bathroom
  • Mess with the pool equipment
  • Figure out why every damn square inch of me hurts!

GAAAAA! Stop the world! I wanna get off! 

The big question of the morning is why do I hurt so damn much? Especially the hips: I can barely hobble around the house. And far’s I can see, there is exactly ZERO reason for that. Other than possibly, maybe sleeping cattywampus during the night, there is no good reason for the ridiculous body to hurt so spectacularly.

Ohhh well. Wonder Cleaning-Lady was kindly here yesterday. Thank the gods and all their minions! This will allow me to crawl back into bed (sans housecleaning chores!), whenever I can work up the strength to stumble up the hall to the bedroom again.

Meanwhile…I sit in a big old leather easy chair, swill coffee, and HURT. And that means the poor li’l dawg will not get her doggy-walk this morning.

On the one hand, I imagine walking a mile or so would loosen up whatever hurts (and hurts and hurts and HURTS), thereby relieving me of whining duty.

But on the other hand: I think not. If moving around were going to ease this pain, it would have done so already. The dawg and I have been up for nigh unto three hours, with the human putzing around in the usual a.m. tasks and frolics. By now, if normal motion were going to stop the pain, it would have done so.

This li’l excruciation actually has been going on since Christmas Day. That’s…what? Ten days or so? If it were gonna get better, it would have.

My son has made off with my car, and so I can’t go to the doctor without discommoding him. And that is a quarrel/guilt trip I do not wish to engage just now. Whenever I work up the energy (if ever???), I’ll need to call the doctor, make an appointment, reserve an Uber or a cab, get myself to the quack’s, rassle with that exchange, get a car to come back to the quack’s office, and get myself back home.

And frankly….that’s just more trouble and more hassle than I can manage just now.

Yeah: this hip thing has been going on since Christmas. According to my little Hypochondriac’s Journal (where I note ailments so I can describe them accurately to the quack), it started on the 25th.

Yup: here on the 25th we find an entry that reads “Spavined my right hip while on dog walk. Hurts like Hell!!!”

uh-HUH…  Merry Christmas to me!

So this has been going on a good 10 days. And “hurts like Hell” is a bit of an understatement…

Well…give it a day or so, and then I’ll have to start doing battle with the Mayo to try to get one of the doctors out there to look at me. That will be an exercise in frustration. And since I can no longer drive, it will be a nightmare effort to get to their office.

Hm. There’s a storefront doctor’s office next to the Albertson’s, just down the block. I’ve been there a couple times for minor stuff. They might see me on short notice. Problem is, I don’t think I can walk that far! So I’ll have to hire someone to drive me six blocks!!

Jayzuz!

STOP THE WORLD!
I WANNA GET OFF!!

*

!!!ringy dingy ringy dingy!!!…..

God Damned phone solicitor!

Phone soliciting should be illegal. 

The bastards who hire prison inmates to pester you on the phone should be arrested and fined out the wazoo. And the prisoners who let themselves  be used that way should have extra time added to their sentences.

Did you know that? A fair number of the S.O.B.’s who jangle your phone several times a day are prison inmates. Phone hustling is a prison industry. Phone s0liciting businesses go into the slams and hire inmates at a fraction of the going wage to call you on the phone and pester you.

Yeah: your taxpayer dollars at work!

Glorioski!

by

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!

Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt!!!!

by

Ohhhhh my GAWD it hurts! 

The hip ailment, that is. Old age bein’ what it is, I contrived to SPROING my hip (don’t ask how…I dunno!) so that every goddam movement hurts, hurts, and then hurts some more.

Dog followed me out to the mailbox this afternoon…didn’t know whether I could get her back in.

Fortunately, dawgs being the empaths that they are, she intuited that something was up, and she did trail me back into the house. My kinda dawg! 

Man!  I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed such baroque pain. This, from the old bat who delivered her baby without anaesthetic  because she thought labor was supposed to hurt more than one’s periods. 😮 It did not. Not by a long shot!

The hip pain envelops most of the right side, plus the lower back. And the pre-existing left hip pain has not gone away.

So…LOL! What we have here is pain¹ and pain² and pain³…how much fun is that?

Hmmmm… Here’s something at Amazon, the Savior of All Who Refuse to Trudge Out to the Store: A hip brace thingie that’s supposed to ease your back pain. Dang! I wonder if that would work?

Well…let’s wait until  tomorrow morning…if this thing still hurts (believe me: it will), we’ll order this lash-up then. And hope for the best.

If there is a best…

Wow!!

by

Life in lovely downtown Phoenix…  This little adventure occurred right across the road from where I was gonna live. Yeah: just a few years ago, I almost bought an apartment just across the street from this spot.

What a place!!

Fortunately, I decided the price was too high for what the condos offered. And that the location would be too noisy. All very urban, y’know.

It was a conundrum, for sure.

I didn’t want to move to Sun City, where my parents held forth after my father retired, and where SDXB went. Old folks’ mausoleums aren’t my speed, alas.

We have our own little adventures, here in this middling in-town section of North Central Avenue. But so far nothing that dramatic! And certainly we have fewer incidents per month or per year than other centrally located districts do.

Honest t’Gawd, this place gets more and more like Southern California as the days trundle by. But really: I’m past the age where I feel any enthusiasm for packing up a house and moving into a new shack and finding new places for all the junk and unpacking box after box and stocking shelf after shelf. Ugh!

So I sit here and listen to the melody of gunshots — off in the distance, so far — and watch the kids play and…loaf. 

Outta There!

by

Hmmm… Sounds like the cops must have chased off the legions of delinquents, drunks, and morons who inhabit Main Drag North at this hour of a weekend evening. The Roar ROAR ROAR that we normally enjoy at this time of night has suddenly ceased. So…presumably the gendarmes went after the roaring idiots.

It’s the kind of stupid stuff that makes Sun City look good. To the extent that a mausoleum can look good, I suppose.

{chortle!}  Actually, the racket from Main Drag North was one of the reasons SDXB took off for Sun City. He likes to sleep with his windows open..not, indeed, the ideal arrangement in a neighborhood bounded by drag-race tracks.

I, being a female type, keep my doors and windows shut and solidly locked at night.

BANG!

Charming. Another backfire…or fire-cracker…or gunshot.

At any rate…suddenly dead quiet emanates from the ‘Hood’s northern border. So presumably la policia have come awake.

Come a holiday, every moron in the city is outside shooting off their bang-bangs. That turns New Year’s, the Fourth of July, Christmas, Labor Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day…and on and on and on…into noise-making nuisances.

This is one of the reasons SDXB took out for Sun City. When you live in a mausoleum, you don’t have quite the noise problem that you get on the fringe of a slum.

That notwithstanding, I ain’t movin’ to Senility Central. Just close the damn bedroom windows!!

 

 

Our Garden Spot…

by

Cop Copter overhead to the north, circling angrily…

BANG! BANGBANG!

Some a$$hole shooting at him, 

Herd the dog inside, follow her in. Shut off the exterior house lights.

Bathe as fast as I can scrub my li’l self. Dry off. Dart into the bed.

Cop is still circling to the northwest, though a further distance away.

And…his copter motor racket fades…he’s sailing off. Thank gawd!

One more gunshot. And now: silence.

 WHAT….

                A…..

                    PLACE…..

And NO, Sun City isn’t one whit better than lovely uptown Phoenix.

Our problem, I fear, is NOT that we’re in the slums of west Phoenix…NOT that we’re dodging bullets in south Phoenix, NOT that we’re trying to look inconspicuous north of the canal, but… Yeah: that we reside in the city of Phoenix. 

Horrible.

Went back and looked at those houses over by the canal, on the east side of ritzy Central Avenue.

Uhh….  huh uh! A dirt path runs behind that little tract of houses, right between their back wall and the canal bank. A perfect trail for every burglar, rapist, and lunatic in North Phoenix.

So…heh…we won’t be looking at that real estate.

Seriously: if Sun City weren’t an hour’s drive away from M’hijito’s house — if it weren’t bathed in the atmosphere of the mausoleum — I would have followed SDXB out there the minute he sold his house and moved westerly, ever westerly.

But I just can’t stand the place. Hated living there when I was stuck out there with my parents. And I sure don’t want to repeat that act. Ugh!

If you wanna live in peace and quiet, d-o-o-n’t retire to Phoenix!!!