Coffee heat rising

Dogs

Women and Terror

by

Loafing late in bed of a Friday morning (nya nya nyaaa! I don’t hafta go to work!!!), I find myself wondering about a peculiar behavior of my mother’s. She was scared, y’know.

Not just scared. But absolutely fukkin’ TERRORIZED. All the time. Any time she was alone in the house. Any time after dark.

One evening she came down to our house in Phoenix’s middle-class, rather boring Encanto district, having decided to spend the night. So we pass a nice day and watch TV all evening and then we unfold the big ole’ sofa-bed (queen-sized, it was) so she can hit the sack.

Make the bed, get everything all nice for a good night’s sleep, and, as she’s getting ready to climb into the sack…what does she do?

She opens her purse and pulls out a pistol! This, she sets on the TV table next to the bed.

No…

Kidding….

She was SO SCARED that even though she was at my house, with a German shepherd at her side, she felt she needed a gun.

I was just floored. 

No, she wasn’t putting me on. She really and truly was so frightened, of life the universe and all that, she needed a pistol at her side.

Trying to reassure her did nothing to help her to feel any braver. It just convinced her that I was crazy and not too bright.

****

A lot of women feel that way. I used to be scared to death all the time, too. That, as you might surmise, was the reason for the German shepherd room-mate.

Had something happened to her? Dunno. If it did, she never told me about it. But on the other hand, I’d never been seriously attacked (harassed, yes; but actually attacked, no), and I wasn’t scared witless in my own house. Scared: yes. That’s why we had the GerShep. But scared enough to be waving a pistol around? Not so much.

That German shepherd did earn her keep one night, after some poor wretch got into the house while she and her humans were sound asleep. Unfortunately for him, she did wake up…and got between him and the door he came in.

LOL! He found a door he could get out, just as the fangs were about to rip off his rear end. Last I heard he was still running.

It brings you around to the question of whether you really do need a gun in the house. And that question brings up a whole slew of other questions:

* Do you know how to use it?
* Would you use it? Really? On another human being?
* How are you going to recognize a false alarm? Hubby coming home late at night, for example. The teenagers roaming around in the wee hours….
* Can you (or can you not) get out of the house safely if some jerk comes in a door or window?
* What are you gonna do if you shoot some schmuck and kill him? How will you prove he didn’t belong in your house and you really didn’t know who he was? How DO you prove a negative, anyway?
* Wouldn’t you be better off just to close the bedroom door and lock it when you go to bed?

On and on.

I tend to feel that keeping a gun at hand every night is probably a bad idea. Definitely a bad idea if you have kids in the house.

Do I feel safe alone in the house here in lovely North Phoenix? Hell, no! It’s a dangerous area, no question of that.

But EVERY place where humans live is a dangerous area. So you can’t get too paranoid over your own neighborhood. Nor can you barricade yourself in the bedroom every night, armed to the teeth with pistols and shotguns. That just doesn’t make sense…and serves only to scare you more.

My own guess is that your best defense is an alarm system: whether the kind that runs on batteries or the type that runs on four feet. If someone’s around, you want to know it in time to get out, or at least to barricade yourself inside the bathroom. A phone in every room, including the bathrooms, is de rigueur.

***

I’ve lived most of my life now, and lived it with few truly dangerous incidents. I’m not a pretty young girl anymore (thank Gawd). With my boobs lobbed off, that’s one fewer attraction.

But that was true of my mother…well…she still had boobs, but she also had lots of wrinkles and stank to high heaven of tobacco smoke. And she was scared half to death: alll the time. As for me: well… Dude! Make my day!

Seriously: I don’t feel especially scared. I don’t recklessly put myself in situations where I might be at risk. But neither do I forget that there is NO situation where a woman is not at some risk. 

Kids!!! <3 Kids!!!

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Joy! The ‘Hood gets better and better! Because..NOW we’re getting KIDS!

Gosh, what could possibly BE better than a passel kids playing out front?

The neighbors have thrown a birthday party for one of their short set. Maybe a dozen wonderful pre-teens out there, running around and partying and laughing.

Ruby and I set out for a walk. As we pass by the chivaree, a passel of short stuff comes running out to dote on the corgi. 😀

“Can we pet her? Can we pet her?”

LOL! You imagine she’ll let you get away without petting her???

So now we have a new crowd of lifelong friends. Too, too fun. 

Yes, I do love this neighorhood.
Why d’you ask? 
😀

Ahhh! And now to LOAF!

by

Dayum, but Olde Age has its compensations. 😀  The biggest is NOT HAVING TO GET DRESSED AND TRUDGE OFF TO WORK!!!

Wheeee! Here we are, dawn’s early light cheerily glowing in the window. The Dawg and the Human stuffed with breakfast. Human lingering over a cup of hot coffee.

Beloved Pool Dude has been here and gone, leaving the Hole in the Ground into Which to Pour Money spotlessly, sparkling clean. Bless that wonderful man!

Ruby thinks he IS wonderful. And weirdly, she seems to know what day of the week it is. On Pool Dude Day, she lurks by the back door, waiting…waiting…waiting for the Moment of Joy when he shows up.

And yea verily, on that morning he does show up. Then we have a Magnificent Moment of Doggy Joy, after which Ruby must tear outside and stand there at the pool fence’s gate, admiring his magnificence.

Apparently many of these guys are ex-convicts. Pool cleaning is one of the…uhm…trades for which Arizona prisons train inmates. So, theoretically, when they get back on the street they’ll have some other way to earn money than by stealing your car, eh?

At any rate, I have no idea what about the guy makes him seem so splendid to a corgi. But without doubt, she thinks he’s about the best Human ever to stumble across the surface of the earth.

Whenever I get off my duff, I do need to trudge down to the neighborhood clinic to…uhmmmm…. wwwaaaaitaminit!

I wuz about to say, to try to get the doc to do something about the constant maddening ITCH in my feet and legs, and as the computer cruises happily across the Internet it lands on a page that tells us...

Vitamin B12: Common Side Effects (Oral Supplements and Injections)

  • Headache
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Mild diarrhea
  • Itching or a skin rash/acne
  • Dizziness
  • Tingling sensation in hands and feet (peripheral neuropathy)
  • Weakness or fatigue 

And which Vitamin B-gulper do we know who has a mad itch and crazy-making tingling in the hands and feet?

For.
The.
Luv.
of.
GAWD!!!!!

Manufacturers of OTC nostrums should be required to list ALL a drug’s potential side effects on the label! In 14-point type!!!

Man! I just stumbled across that li’l blurb. Wasn’t looking for it. And now know why my hands and feet and lips and gums feel like an electric current is buzzing through my body.

GodDAMMIT. I wish I’d known this two weeks ago. 

Ugh!!! Wonder how long it’ll take for this stuff to wear off… Bare minimum two or three days, whaddaya bet? More likely a week or two.

Wouldn’t you think that by now, having arrived in the middle of Olde Age, I would KNOW BETTER????? 

Yea verily, by now shouldn’t I have figured out that just about every damn pill I drop down my throat has some untoward side effect?

Argh!! My Christian Scientist crackpot relatives may not have been crackpots, after all. Maybe they had somethin’ there…

Awww, jeez! Guys!!!!

by

Dare to sit down to breakfast, and ARF!!!!

Get up to see what the Hound is arfing at, and see Gerardo’s wondrous gang of yard dudes out front.

Dayum!!!

Get off duff. Trot around: pick up junk, put junk away; set up pool so guys can work around it; pick up more junk, put more junk away; pick up and discard mounds of dog sh!t… Finally get the place ready for the men.

Stumble back in the house. Look out front to see if they need me to go out there and unlock the side gate…

and…

and….

THEY’RE GONE!!!!!!!

WTF??????  Nary a sign of a yard dude! Or a yard dude’s truck!!

ohhhh…kayyyy…. So where’s the dog?????

Ruby!

RUBY!!

R-U-U-B-E-E-E-E!!!!!!

Nary a small fuzzy corgi!

Ohhhhh shee-ut! Did they open the gate and let her out?

Frantically search around and search around and call and call and search around and search around and call and call and…and…

Lo!
Here she is! 
Ambling out from underneath the toilet.

ggrrrrrr….  This is gonna be one of THOSE days, ain’t it?

Glorioski Morning

by

Truly: a genuinely beautiful day has dawned. Ruby and I loaf in the west side yard, having traipsed all over the neighborhood.

Dodged Mr. Coyote while on that junket. Fortunately, the coyotes here are more scared of the humans than the humans are scared are of them…and that is irrationally scared. So our wild doggy friend melted away into the landscaping as we strolled past.

LOL! I do carry a walking stick on these doggy-treks. Not to help with walking on the utterly flat roads here. But to serve as a shillelagh if one is ever needed.

Gorgeous day or no gorgeous day, chances are the Dawg and I will head back to the sack in fairly short order. For reasons unknown, I’m feeling unduly sleepy.

In these parts, you’re more likely to need a shillelagh to defend against a human predator than to beat back a coyote. But this morning, not even one of the two-legged critters was in evidence. So, it was a nice day for a doggy-walk.

And right now, it being Sunday morning, the ‘Hood loafs in the Silence of the Tomb. It’s very, very quiet out here, except for the annoying roar of yet another jet plane. We’re far enough from the commercial airport AND far enough from Luke Air Force Base that the planes are well overhead by the time they get this far. But…not far enough overhead to completely silence the things.

One of my mother’s oddities was that she actually LIKED the sound of fighter jets charging around overhead. “It’s the sound of freedom,” she would simper.

Nothing like another World War to bring you a spate of freedom, eh?

Ruby-Dooo!!! EEEEEEK!

by

Went to call the Ruby-doo this afternoon, by way of feeding her and then loafing on the back patio, and…

and…

and she was GONE!!!!!

As in GONE gone!

Searched all through the house. Searched the yards. Called and called and CALLED…. Noooo Ruby!

OOOOhhhh sheee-ut!

I just about fainted dead away. She must have managed to get outside without my noticing her escape. Right?

Called and searched and searched and called and called and searched and...and…eventually, along she comes, ambling up to the front door.

HOLEEE maquerel!

How she got out, I do not know. More to the point, how she made her way back, I cannot imagine! In this garden spot, once a house pet takes off outdoors, that is a GONE CRITTER.

Seriously: I really thought I would never see her again.

She must not have wandered far, because it only took her a few minutes to resurface.

Terrifying. Freakin’ terrifying!!!!!

How on earth could I have done anything SO STUPID and SO CARELESS as to have left her outside in the front patio?????  And then let her slip out through the gate!

WAKE UP, LADY!!!!!!!

After this, I’ll have to be one whole helluva lot more careful.

Feels like an absolute miracle that she didn’t set out for Tucson. And that she came back when she was called. GOOD DOG, LI’L RUBY!!!!