Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Movin’ On…if it can be called moving…

by

LOL! Okay, so the magnificent stabs of pain that visited the lame hip a little earlier today have pretty well settled down. What kicked it up, I have NO idea.

Nor do have I a clue what made it settle down. All I know just now is that at the moment it hurts, but it sure doesn’t hurt like it did.

Don’t get any optimistic ideas that “doesn’t hurt like it did” means it’s gonna go away. Because that ain’t how this thing has been working. Yeah: it comes and goes. It’ll hurt like Hell. Then for no obvious reason the pain will recede: not gone, but tolerable. Then a few hours later — again for no obvious reason: hurts like Hell again.

No clue what makes it flare up. No clue what makes it settle down. All I know is that it comes and goes. But never…ever…goes AWAY.

Well..what ELSE I know is…

* I’m tired of hurting
*I’m tired of listening to my ears whistling
* I’m tired of my yard being a mess because it hurts too much to clean things up
* I’m tired of my house being a mess because it hurts too much to drag stuff around.
* I’m tired of looking at the dorked up dining-room chair cushions, a mess because it hurts too much to take the chairs apart and try to fix said mess
* I’m damn tired of knowing that when I get up from this chair it’s gonna hurt like Hell

STOP THE WORLD! I WANNA GET OFF!!

{Chortle!} Actually, stopping the world may not help. We’re told that the accursed peripheral neuropathy can persist for weeks, if not months. Ohhhhhh well…..

YOW!!! Incredible pain!

by

Holeee maquerel! This morning as I was puttering around the house, my right hip went out.

As in OUT out…yow!!!! 

I don’t think I’ve ever had anything hurt that much…and I had my baby without anaesthetic because I thought childbirth is supposed to hurt more than one’s periods.

(Hint: it doesn’t.)

Could barely walk, but made it to a phone. Called the Fire Dept rescue crew.

And…of course…by the time they got here the pain was beginning to subside.

They must have thought I was crazy!

Maybe I am crazy…  ?????

They went on their way.

I limped back into the house.

And now here I am walking around with almost NO pain, a little stiffness…and wondering WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT????

Ahhh, here’s a little cookie-frosting: The cops’ copter is circling around to the north.

At this hour — just coming on to  9 a.m. — that can indicate a car accident.

Or — as at all hours in this place — it also can mean a home invasion. Domestic abuse. Kid fell in the pool and is drowning (or already drowned). Car wreck. On and entertainingly on….

Welp…better get up and check that all the doors are locked. Looks like the toast is done, too.

And so, awaaayyyyy!

AAARRRRGHHH! Not to say “goddammit!”

by

Just went out in back to enjoy this morning’s swiggle of coffee and…

Yeah:

Discovered that SOMEONE STOLE THE PILLOWS OFF THE BACK  PORCH CHAIRS. 

God.

Damm.

It.

!!!!!!!

I made those pillows myself, to fit the chairs. With some difficulty, we might add. Had to drive clear across west Phoenix to get the cushions and the fabric.

And now all but one of them is gone.

Yeah. The considerate thief left me ONE pillow to sit on. 

Ohhhhkayyyyyyy….given my decrepitude, is it possible that in a Senior Moment I stashed them in the garage or a closet to keep them out of the rain?

a) What rain???
b) What closet???

And c) NOOOO. Nope. No stack of lawn-chair pillows in any of the closets, in the garage, in the storage shed…nooooo where. 

So pretty clearly, somebody stole them.

Isn’t that cute?

I’ll have to electrify the next set, eh? Booby-trapped lawn chairs! 😀

GGGAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

I dunno what is going on these days, but of late everything that comes my way makes me angry as hell. 

The other Latest Goddam Outrage is that to get a covid shot around here you have to traipse to your doctor and get a prescription! 

Yeah. Kill an hour of your time driving around and sitting in a waiting room and yakking with the quack to get a 30-second jab!

What?

The?

Fuck?

I have yet to jump through those hoops — or to drive an hour out to the Mayo to talk MayoDoc into shooting me up. And so every breath  taken, presumably, risks laying me low with a potentially fatal respiratory infection.

That’s an hour each way. Yeah: TWO HOURS of driving time to get an ordinary drugstore shot.

It looks like having to extract a prescription for an ordinary flu or covid shot is going to be S.O.P. Sooo….I may have no choice!

My son thinks the Mayo can do no wrong, so at his behest all of his doctors and all of my doctors are working out there at the clinic.  Yeah: halfway to Bisbee.

Thus we’re talking about blowing away a whole afternoon to get a 20-second shot that has always been available at a pharmacy a ten-minute walk from my house!

Either that or taking a chance that maybe I won’t get the disease and praying for the best.

WTF???????

Cool Dude!

by

My son: definite COOL DUDE. 

The man took time off his job(!!) to schlep me up to the Mayo Clinic, there to get a blood test. That’s a bit of a drive, and as you know, sitting around a doctor’s waiting room is always an efficient use of your time. /eyeroll/

Drove me out to the fringe of Ritzy-Titzyville, drove me home, helped with a bunch of ditz… Dang! How nice, eh?

Once left alone back here, I realized a grocery trip was in order. But…it’s hotter than the hubs out there this afternoon. So…guess I’ll wait till sunset and then make a run on the Sprouts or the Fry’s supermarket to pick up bread and dog food and whatnot.

A nuisance, but better than going out there in this heat!

Y’know…this is one of the most conveniently located neighborhoods in the city: not one, not two, but three major grocery markets within easy walking distance. Plus a veterinarian. A hair stylist. A computer store. A Bookman’s. And on and on and on. Truth to tell, between those stores and Amazon, I really hardly even need to leave my house to get my shopping done. Just call ’em on the phone and they’ll deliver!

Seriously! These days, I go into stores to shop more out of boredom than for any need to select loot.

This evening, I’ll hit the supermarket to pick up a few more cans of dog food for Ruby, a jar of maple syrup, a box of tea bags, and whatnot. None of this stuff is urgent…and so the truth is, I may not bother.

Recently the prospect of following SDXB and New Girlfriend out to Sun City has crossed my fevered little mind. But…y’know…  I don’t wanna. 

First, because it’s a bitch of a drive into this part of town from unlovely Sun City. And my son lives here, not anywhere down in that direction. I just don’t see enough of an advantage to living in Old Folks’ Central to actually move out there.

Second. because Sun City is right under the Luke Air Force Base flight path. And so…NOISE???  Lemme tellya NOISE!!!!!

The pilots start their daily practice at dawn, and the jets roar back and forth and up and down for a good four hours. You can’t sit on your back porch without being blasted off your chair.

Hilariously, my mother used to pretend she actually liked that racket. “It’s the sound of freedom!” she used to simper.

Uhm. No, Mom: it’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way. 

She used to drive me crazy with that “sound of freedom” BS. But I guess she believed it. And hey: whatever makes ya happy, eh?

You can hear those jets blasting all the way up here in North Central: that’s a good 20 miles. Or more. The racket as heard from my parents’ back porch, 20 miles closer to the base, was freakin’ deafening. 

Ohhh well.

So here I am, all alone in fancy-Dan North Central, without any other old buzzards around to keep me company. If I’d get off my duff and go to the church, I surely would make friends and find folks to fill some time. But…well…religion isn’t really my Thing.

And truth to tell, I don’t know of anything else that goes on in the central  part of Phoenix that appeals to me.

Guess I could go back to teaching adjunct in the junior colleges.

But…uhm… Y’know…  That’s work! And I do have a moral objection to that stuff. 😉

Hiking in the nearby desert preserves fills some time. But…man! I’ve had a couple of real creepy experiences up there, and so these days feel little enthusiasm for tromping around the foothills by myself. My friends have all moved to Sun City and waypoints, or else passed away. And so just now I don’t know anyone who would like to keep me company (and act as de facto bodyguard) on those early-morning, pre-hot hours strolls.

Alas, Cool Dude fills his daytime hours with that job of his. So…that doesn’t leave a lot of choice in ways to occupy one’s retirement hours.

****

WOW, is it hot out there. The thermometer doesn’t seem to think so: it’s only registering 105 degrees. But man! Walk out that back door, and it feels like you’re walking into an oven!

Guess it must be a little humid. That’s what makes Arizona heat feel like actual heat. 

Anyway….that will moot tonight’s doggy-walk, for sure. And take care of any silly ideas I might have had about walking up to the grocery store. FORGET that!! 😀

and soooo….

Out the door at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. That’s when the nearest grocers open. In an hour, I can collect enough loot to reload the pantry and get back here just in time to evade the first blast of heat.

 

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again…

by

Or “still”…  Or something. 

Sunday…

The AC has been pounding away. Don’t even THINK of asking what the power bill is likely to be this month. Probably two or three hundred bucks. But…don’t think about it. No. No thinking!!

Today is Sunday. If I had any sense, I’d surface down at the church and rebuild old friendships. Because…well…I do need some human company. No question of it.

But…my son has kiped my car. 

I have no way to get down to the church except on a bus, a highly questionable ride.  Plus just now, as we scribble, the temp in the shade of the back porch is A HUNDRED AND FIVE DEGREES.

No way in Hell am I traipsing 16 blocks eastward to the bus stop and standing around in that heat until a south-bound ride comes along. If a ride comes along.

Now…yes, it IS true that if I would get what passes for my act together, I could lasso a fellow church-goer into picking me up and schlepping me down to All Saints. But…that would be…you know…work. 

It also would be a great deal nervier than I happen to feel just now.

Gasp! I keep thinking it’s hotter than the hubs in the house. But that really isn’t quite the case. What’s happening is…it’s just a little humid in here. And in Arizona, you don’t have to get very  humid to make the heat feel like a blast furnace. That would be because it IS a blast furnace….

Perusing real estate ads in Sun City. Y’know, the house that I’m in was built by the same developer who built out most of Sun City. And you can see the similarity!  My house looks surprisingly like a Sun City shack.

Mine is rather better built, though. The price range in North Central is far higher than westside locations will support, and so Del Webb — the Sun City guy — produced neighborhoods here that echo the look of Sun City, but…well… The houses here are sturdier, better insulated, more diversely designed. Even though the exteriors look surprisingly similar.

***

And now it’s Monday…

***

Started this a while ago. Lost track. Wandered off. Fell Asleep. Who knows what else…

Splendidly HORRIBLE morning out there. Hot (95 degrees in the shade of the back patio), high overcast, damp, and sticky.

Friend is slated to come over this noon, thereupon to go out to lunch. Hope she does indeed surface: Nothing like a convenable human to make life more or less livable!

Maybe I should offer to fix lunch here, so we don’t have to go out in that swamp. Don’t have much, though. And without a car, you can be sure I don’t feel like walking to a grocery store.

Hmmmm….

Not to say {chortle!}  Just stuck a wonderfully stupid sign on the front security door, telling the accursed door-to-door solicitors to take a flying F at the moon.

Well. Ahem.. Possibly not that explicitly. It asks that they not ring the doorbell, because someone inside is ill.

I’m ill, all right: SICK of nuisance phone and door-to-door solicitors pestering me several times a day.

LOL! My friend already knows I’m crazy. This visit will confirm her suspicions.

****

Grrrrrr!!! Speaking of nuisances, I’ve got a whole, large bag of beautiful frozen shrimp in the fridge…and can’t tell whether they’re the recalled, contaminated variety or not.

It doesn’t LOOK like they are, though. The brand name on the package doesn’t appear to be associated with the bad shrimp.

Hope not. Because I really, REALLY don’t want to go traipsing out in the heat to buy more dinner food. Nor do I want to throw out God only knows how many dollars worth of chow.

***

LOL!!!!!

Welp…there was a reason I didn’t want to traipse out in the heat to pick up chow for dinner.

It is too goddamn hot to make it all the way to the grocery store!!!

Or even halfway to the damn grocery store!

Wunderground claims it’s only 106 out there. And in fact, that’s exactly what the back-porch thermometer says, right now: 106 degrees.

I find that a little hard to believe: if asked, I’d have said it was 110 or a bit higher. But…heh! I are a English major: I are not a thermometer!

So. Half an hour ago, I set out for the supermarket on Gangbanger’s way, there to buy some light chow and a bottle of white wine. And as you can no doubt intuit: didn’t make it! 

Gave up before I got a block from the shack. Turned around. Came back.

Thank all the gods for iced water!

😀

Thinking of asking Wonder Cleaning-Lady to drive me up to the store. She’s here banging around the house just now. But…but…that seems like a little much to ask. As if she weren’t knocking herself out quite enough!

The local grocery stores open at 7:00 a.m. So..duhhhhh! The answer to this conundrum is to show up at the Sprouts or the Albertson’s door at 7:00 a.m.

How hard IS that?????

Some of these establishments are now delivering. If I really wanted to bestir myself, I could call one of them and get stuff sent over.

But that has a fundamental drawback: Americans.

Seriously! 😀  Americans by and large don’t cook with fresh food — they heat junk that comes in cans and boxes. S-O-O…they don’t know how to pick out fresh fruit and vegetables. Ask them to bring you a fresh head of romaine, and they  just grab whatever’s on top of the pile in the grocery-store bin. And that…well…tends not to be good.

******

Whooooaaaaa! Look up the local Albertson’s on Conduit of Blight, and you see they open at SIX a.m., not at seven!

Hot dayum!

(And we DO mean “hot”!)

This opens a whole new door. 

At 6:00 o’clock, it’s already hot here, but it’s not fukkin homicidal. If I show up with a list and my roller-cart, I should be able to get outta there by 6:30 — surely no later than 6:45 or 7:00 a.m. The walk home is only 20 or 30 minutes.

That means I can get back here before the heat turns truly homicidal! 

Think o’ that!!!

Not a very pleasant way to start the day. But it sure beats hiking through 100-degree heat! If I can get in the door by 6:15 a.m., I can get back to the Funny Farm by 7:00…maybe earlier than that.

At 7 o’clock, the heat will be in the 90s. But that sure ain’t 110. 

STILL hotter than the hubs…

by

My GAWD!!!!  Ruby and I: just back from our morning perambulation of the park. By 7:30, it was SOOO HOT and SOOO WET out there, the human was literally drenched. Horrible!

Hideously reminiscent of (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, in the sun-scorched sand by the waves of the Persian Gulf. Gawdawful place!!!!  So glad to NOT be there.

And in fact, if my son weren’t here in (un)lovely Phoenix, you can be sure I would NOT be here. Between the ever-urbanizing, ugly city and the truly ugly summer weather, this would not be where I would choose to live.

Well, one nice thing about this morning: the nasty weather kept most of the air-headed dog-walkers indoors. So Ruby and I didn’t have to dodge a lot of out-of-control pooches, for a change.

Why are people soooo stupid about their dogs???

Anyway, what we did get to see was an almost brand-new baby being pushed along in a carriage by his spectacularly proud dad. That was cool!!!

Metaphorically speaking…

Tooling along thinking…man! I’ve gotta get a lawyer to replace the very late and once great Mike Kimerer. We need to be sure all the wills and paperwork and debts and whatnot are set up for M’jito. I don’t want to surprise him by croaking over and leaving some kind of unholy mess for him to plow through, instead of an orderly estate.

Nobody’s there at Mike’s office: apparently his partners (office-mates may be more like it???) just shut everything down and threw out his files. My will was in one of those files…

I guess I’ll try to reach the ex-husband (high-test lawyer, retired) to see if he can refer me to someone to be sure all that stuff is in order.  Failing that:

????