Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

{Gasp!} {Pant!!}

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Lordie, it is HOTTER THAN THE HUBS OF HADES out there. Two o’clock in the afternoon and it’s 100 degrees in the deepest dark of the back-porch shade structure. Or… 105 degrees, according to Wunderground.

So much for any bright ideas I might have had about making a run on the corner Fry’s or the Sprouts a few blocks down the road.

Non-negotiable!

This summer does indeed seem hotter than normal. But it’s really not that hot: 100 degrees is par for the course…if anything, it’s a little cool for an August afternoon.

But it’s humid (in Arizona terms…that ain’t very). Some clouds are coming up around the horizon…and hereabouts, any moisture in the air makes the air seem hotter than it is.

At any rate: so much for any planned junkets to the nearby stores. I ain’t a-goin’ out in THAT stuff!!! Those stores open as dawn cracks, so it should be possible to shoot into the Fry’s and out before the real heat comes up.

Oddly, it seems a little hot for late August in lovely uptown Phoenix. That’s because the wildest of the monsoon season normally strikes in August: billowing thunderclouds, crazy rainstorms. The rain will usually cool the temperature into the 90s before sunset. Maybe.

We shall see. 

And further(glub!)more….

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As we were saying about what a fine, wet, HOT soggy morning this is…BE GLAD, BE VERY GLAD that you are not a lawn dude.

Oh aaaaagh! What a job! 

It’s 11:30 in the morning. Hotter than the Hubs outdoors. Ninety-five degrees, 15 percent humidity. Coming on to noon, and I’m sitting here exhausted from the strenuous job of loafing that has soaked up most of my morning. Just about the time I decide believe I’ll take a li’l nap, what do I get but
brrrrrrrraaaaaahhhhhblassssstttwrrrrrrrrr!!!!…. 

ohhhh shit!

Gerardo’s guys!

They roar around. They blast around. They fling around. They charge around…on and on and on.

No nap for the lazy one! 😀

Now I’ll have to wait for them to get done so I can give them a check.

I should whine, right?

Honestly, I do not understand how those guys hold up in this unholy heat! Slamming around and banging around and roaring around and hauling around: Augh!  

About 15 minutes of that job would kill me.

Which, o’course, is why I hire them…. But selfishly, crabbily, old-bitchily…I sure wish they’d time their visits outside the napping hour!

😀

OMG! Lookit that: he’s cleaning stuff out of the freakin’ pool!!!! I can’t believe it.

I mean, how awesome can these guys get? <3

***

Forked over a hundred bucks to them. Kind of a stiff bill, until you think…uhm,,,,how would I like to be out there slamming around in 100-degree heat? And how many lawn dudes would skim the floating stuff out of the pool???

My heroes!

Actually, they’re Ruby’s heroes. 

She sits and lurks and waits for them. And when they finally show up, she goes in for the attack and loves them into submission. 

My gawd, that dog loves those lawn dudes!

I don’t know how she knows it’s Lawn Dude Day, but she surely does. And she IS waiting for them.

Weird.

Life is weird. Dogs are weirder.

The Joys of Living in Phoenix

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10:52 p.m.

What a fukkin’ ZOO this place is!

Rousted by the dog: got up to let her out to do her Thing. Spotted a cop copter buzzing the neighb0rhood.

Managed to urge the dog along and then dodge back in the house. Cop is still buzzing around over Main Drag West…essentially right over my old house’s roof.

Oh…hold that statement. Here he comes over here.

Here at FaM, Main Drag West also goes by the name Conduit of Blight. That’s pretty much what it is: a thoroughfare that brings criminals, delinquents, and pursuing cops into the ‘Hood. Tiresome as hell!!

Speaking of tiresome, I yam TIRED and wish to go back to sleep. Looks like that’s not gonna happen for awhile.

What. A. Place!

Hot enough to fry your brain…if you still have one…

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WILL WordPress let me back in this time???

Hmmmmmm…..  The answer would appear to be “Yep!” But…let us hold our wind and water…we don’t KNOW that it will let me post this squib. Ohhhh well...got nothin’ else to do just now.

M’hijito, my honored son, just called on the horn. He’s on his way out of town and all worried that I’m not competent to buy a bag of groceries. Or, more to the point, that I’ll try to walk to the grocery store (a distance of about three blocks) in the broiling heat.

{chortle!}  What CAN one say?

* Yes, I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.
* I’ll call Uber and ask them to drive me the three blocks to the store.
* Don’t worry: if the dawg and I run out of food before you get back, we’ll just do without until you get here.
* Pass me the goddam bottle of wine.

See, the problem I have these days is that people don’t seem to recognize when I’m kidding. And I don’t understand why. ‘Cause I’ve always been something of a kidder. Why isn’t it obvious anymore?

Well, to be honest (and no, NOT kidding this time), it’s 105 degrees out there. And no, I wouldn’t be happy about my 80-ish mother wandering around, alone, in 105-degree heat.

And that’s what we’ve got right now, in the balmy shade of the back patio: 105 degrees. Hevvin only knows what it is in the full sun. 

But…y’know…I’m stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid.

Of course I’m not about to junket up Conduit of Blight Blvd and across the parking lot at Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North through 105-degree heat. Soooo…WHY does he think I might actually be that stupid?

***

Okay….let us imagine some part of the agèd brain is still functional. How ARE we gonna get the chow we need?

Here in the ‘Hood, we have several possibilities for the agèd and the witless:

* Uber. This neighborhood is overrun with Uber cabs. If I wanted someone to drive me to a grocery store RIGHT NOW, I could call Uber.

* A train. It rides on tracks that run north and south past the Funny Farm, less than three blocks to the west.

* Busses. They run on the same thoroughfare; just not as often.

* Feet. The shopping center is only three blocks up to the north! Even in the blasting heat, a person in normal health (as I happen to be) is not going to expire from walking that far.

By the same token, neither am I about to pay a bus or a train to carry me three blocks to a store. Gimme a break!

* Time and the River Flowing… As a practical matter, in about six hours the sun will have gone down, the air will be much cooler, and walking up to that shopping center will be a simple and safe matter.

Yeah…WAIT until the sun goes down, forgodsake! Or start before the sun gets high enough to fry the landscape! How hard is that?

Oh well. Truth to tell, I wouldn’t have been real happy about my mother gallivanting in 105-degree heat. So I can’t bellyache too much!

Further truth to tell, though, the issue is not the ambient temperature. It’s the ambient humidity.

Ugh!!! As we scribble, it’s overcast out there (got that?: 105 degrees and cloudy!). And yeah, that does make for some real unpleasant heat — even dangerous heat.

So…yeah. Afraid it’s not a good afternoon to trot on over to the Albertson’s.

She’s B-a-a-a-c-k!

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Zowie! I’m in!!

WordPress has been blocking me from signing into the Funny About Money website. Just did something — dunno what — that suddenly let me into the site.

Since I may not be able to get back, here’s an update, of sorts…

Things keep getting ridiculouser and ridiculouser. 

For myself: I’m slowly sinking into the Family Disease, which happens to be diabetes. Things go from bad to worse there: the Mayo Clinic has called the state and taken away my driving privileges, meaning I can’t even so much as drive to the grocery store.

Seriously: to buy food at the local market, I have to hike blocks through 100-degree heat! So much for “do no harm,”right?

Wouldn’t Hippocrates love it…

Meanwhile, my son has also fallen ill. Deeply worried about him…but what I can do about it, especially in my present condition, I can’t imagine.

And mean-meanwhile, it looks like there’s a good chance I may soon be dragged to an old-folk’s holding pen, very much against my will. Did you know they can force you into an old-folkerie? Even if you’re willing to hire someone to come to your home and care for you, apparently.

I need a lawyer. Mine dropped dead in his office.

No kidding. Apparently he was just standing there when he had a stroke and literally fell on the floor dead.

So now I have no one to help me through the biggest set of fiascos I’ve ever been through in my life. 

No one answers the phone at his office. Apparently where he had established himself was not a partnership but a sole proprietorship. It appears he was just renting space from the other lawyers in that office. So I can’t reach anyone to at least, for godsake, send me my file!

And I have NO IDEA how to deal with that.

He had written a will which, I hope, will protect my son and pass my property along to him. But…where IS that paperwork? 

My understanding is that wills and whatnot are filed with the County. But did he do that before he fell over dead? Don’t know, and don’t know how to find out.

When life turns into a fukkin’ nightmare, eh? 😮

As I scribble, it’s the wee hours of a Sunday morning. So I’ll have to wait until Monday to even try to get something done. Oh well: that gives a day in which to figure out how to try to get something done.

And mean-fukkin-while, GET THIS:

Some idiot called the state of Arizona and reported that I am being abused. 

No kidding!

The other day two social workers showed up at my front door, saying someone had called the state and told them I was being abused.

HUH?

By a pure miracle, Wonder-Cleaning Lady had been here that day, and so the house was spotlessly clean. I was neatly dressed and combed. So we sat in my clean and neat living room while we had a clean and neat conversation. They went on their way, apparently satisfied that I’m not being beaten and starved.

But of course, that means someone, somewhere is watching.

Yep: Big Brother is watching you…and me!

What kind trouble-maker would call up the state and sic a pair of social workers on me? That just escapes me. But it’s a big worry: will this also create problems for my son?

I simply have no idea. No experience with this kind of thing. And no imagination to picture whatever this trouble-maker might dream up next.

Meanwhile, one thing this unending fiasco has shown is that it was majorly a mistake to establish my medical care at the Mayo Clinic. Not because anything is wrong with the Mayo. But because the Mayo is almost an hour’s drive on the other side of the Valley!!!

They have a hospital that’s a little closer — about half that distance — but it also is a LONG way from my house. I have been enjoined from driving, which means it’s damn near impossible for me to get to a doctor — not without enormous inconvenience and hassle for my son!

{sigh} I guess what this shows is one basic principle: NEVER ESTABLISH YOUR MEDICAL CARE THROUGH A GIANT BUREAUCRACY. 

Seriously: I deeply regret having set health-care things up through the Mayo. Just getting an appointment is a hassle. When you try, you get sent to the far side of Scottsdale…quite a trick to get there, when their quack has nullified your driver’s license.

So it goes…from one fiasco to the next fiasco.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, eh?

Shades of Araby…

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It’s not really that the exterior temperature is so hot. It’s the humidity. Under high overcast come 11:44 a.m., it’s 105 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Yes: that IS one hundred and five degrees. 

{gasp!} Wunderground claims it’s 106 degrees (BFD!) with a 15% chance of rain in the next six hours. Peering out the back door, we see a high, thin layer of overcast, and a back-porch thermometer reading of 105 degrees. Indoors, the AC cools it down to 81 degrees. Which is some 20 degrees better…I guess…but not a helluva lot more comfortable, because it does little to suck the humidity out of the indoor air.

This feels like it did we lived in Arabia: where the weather was chronically hot and soggy. I was a little kid at the time, and so didn’t know any better. But my parents…well, they weren’t averse to complaining about it!  😀

My mother grew up in upstate New York — was sent to California when her paternal grandmother (who was raising her) died of diabetes. No: there was no such thing as insulin in those days…if there had been, you can be sure her folks couldn’t afford it.

My mother never got the Family Disease. I’m told I have “pre-diabetes,” whatever that is. And another family member supposedly has a full-on case of it. Is it not odd that such a dangerous, potentially fatal disease would be heritable? Surely, that would seem to keep the population boom down..

A dear friend also has this fine ailment. She seems to be coping with it well…but that being her business, one never knows.

WhatEVER. Just now I’m wishing I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area, whence my mother’s family emanated. And where, IMHO, I believe I belong. A hundred and five in the shade does not feel livable to me! 😀