Coffee heat rising

House & Yard

WTF?????????

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How in the name of GOD do these clowns get their jobs????? And when a company hires some jerk, do they NEVER test them to see if the jerk knows what he’s doing???????

ARRRGHHHHH!

So….I go out to the pool and start to mess with the pump equipment, by way of cleaning out the filter’s strainer — which by now should be jammed with leaves and stuff, by now, right? Because Pool Dude was here several days ago.

And yeah, no question about it: I SHOULD have gone out there two or three days ago and checked the equipment. But no. I didn’t Because I was too damn lazy. And because, after all, that’s what I pay THEM to do, right?

Arrrghhhh! You’d think by now I’d know better, eh?

So I wander past the pump this afternoon and notice…uhhhh….waitaminit.

The pump’s strainer basket is sitting on the step stool.

Huh?

It’s not inside the pump, where it’s supposed to be. Some moron has taken it out of the pump and LEFT IT SITTING OUT. So all the leaves and crap can get sucked inside the equipment!

Ohhhh F****ck!

Shut everything down.

Take everything apart.

Clean everything out.

Swear, cuss, and swear some more.

Put the parts back together.

Seal the unit back up.

Pray to the Swimming Pool Gods…

Turn the unit back on…

SHHHHHHWWWWWWIIIIIIIIISHHH…..

A miracle!

Looks like the damn thing is working. And there’s even a chance it’s working right.

Well…Helle’s belles. We’ll know along about this time tomorrow afternoon if it actually IS running right. Because by this time tomorrow we’ll have a pool guy out here, to the tune of a pretty penny.

We can pretty much bet that the thing is busted or, at best, cattywampus.. Can’t hurt to hope, though.

But….in fact…. No. It looks like Harvey is probably busted. He’s just going around and around in little circles. That means tomorrow I’ll have to take him to the pool store…which will be quite the trick without a car!

Waitaminit…. Let’s take that back: It looks like Harvey is working but his hose has been shortened to the point where he can’t travel all the way across the bottom of the pool, shallow end to deep end and back. Hence: the elegant circles… Lo! the Explanation: Somebody stole several lengths of pool hose! Then disguised the theft by reconnecting the remaining hose to Harvey.

Goddammit! 

WHY DOES EVERY MORON ON THE PLANET HAVE TO GET IN FRONT OF ME?????????

If  they’re a moron, they’re guaranteed to come my way!

Man! Am I ever sick of STUPID STUFF. 

Roarrr! Not to say “Question Mark?”

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Gerardo’s amazing crew of yard dudes showed up as I was in the middle of scribbling this post. And somehow in the course of chatting with him, I contrived to lose the entire draft.

Wonnerful.

How DO those guys manage to do their job in this ungodly climate? As we scribble, the sky is overcast and the thermometer on the back porch reads a hundred degrees. Our boys are out there roaring around like tractors!

Migawd. I can barely stumble out the back door into that heat. Much less push lawn equipment back and forth and haul away huge bags of debris.

Jeez. It’s already 11:30. I’m so tired I can barely hold my head up. Why is unknown. But M’hijito is supposed to come over for dinner tonight — a gorgeous steak awaits him in the fridge. So…prob’ly I should try to sneak a nap in, so I can stay awake through his visit.

What DOES it all mean, anyway????

FOUND IT! But…..

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So yesterday I was bellyaching because I couldn’t find my gas grill’s outdoor cover — not a cheap item. Figured one of the gerjillion workmen had made off with it.

Nope. That was ungracious of me!

Found it. But…but…

The reason it seemed to be disappeared is that some idiot stashed it away, after he had hauled the grill a good long distance from the brickwork pad where the thing resides. He left it way out on the far end of the backyard. Uncovered and open to the elements…which at this time of year are considerable.

Jayzuz!

So this morning I managed to drag the (heavy!) grill back to the patio by my little girlie self and reposition it on its brick pad. And then…

In the process, I finally found the plastic/fabric cover that goes over it: put the whole lash-up back in place, on its pad outside the fireplace chimney. (Yeah: yesterday I’d had to jury-rig a cover out of black plastic garbage bags!)

Dripping sweat by now: this is a July day in lovely uptown Phoenix. Hot, still, and humid to the point of soggy.

Tape a sign to the brickwork:

PLEASE!!!
DO NOT DRAG THE GRILL 
OFF THE BRICKS AND 
LEAVE IT IN THE YARD!!!!

What the f*ck IS THE MATTER with people? How can you  be so FREAKING STUPID that it doesn’t occur to you that maybe a homeowner placed a heavy appliance in a specific spot because THAT’S WHERE SHE WANTS IT?

Godlmighty, but people are stupid!

Honestly. This kind of sh!t begins to make an apartment in an old-folkerie look good. I’m starting to understand why retirees sell up and move themselves into institutions…where someone else takes care of most of the ditz.

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Okay, if I’m going to stay here (a prospect that begins to look dimmer and dimmer), after this when some workman is bouncing around, I’ll have to go out there and supervise the ba*tard. 

Dayum! Really and truly, I do NOT want to live in one of those prisons for old buzzards. But…it’s beginning to look ominously unlikely that I’ll be able to cope with this kind of BS for many more years. Or even for many more months. 

Why?

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Why do people steal things out of people’s yards?

Just discovered that someone made off with the full-force plastic/fabric cover for my gas barbecue. 

“Just discovered” because it’s going to rain tonight, for the first time in Gawd Only Knows how long. Goddammit. So that makes the first time in G.O.K. how long since I’ve really needed to cover the ‘cue with a generously sized waterproof cover, made for the purpose and for the grill’s size.

I’ve been using a lightweight Home Depot fabric cover. leaving the heavy-duty number for…heavier duty. The lighter one keeps the dust off, but it won’t protect the grill from serious rain or hail. So this evening, having found that the I-mean-business cover was GONE, I had to jury-rig a sturdier cover out of large black plastic garbage bags. Then weigh it down with rocks so it doesn’t blow off when the wind comes up in a typical Arizona storm. One of which, this being mid-summer, we’re likely to enjoy tonight.

It’s hotter than the Hubs out there…so throwing myself around trying to come up with something to protect the BBQ equipment was less than perfectly fun. If I knew which one of my worthies stole that cover, he’d be fired forthwith.

But of course, I have no way of knowing. It may not even have been one of my regulars, but some one-trip repairman who was called to work on the A.C. or the plumbing or the pool equipment….or whatnot.

Y’know…what this says is that whenever ANY service or repair guy is here, I need to stand nearby and watch him as he works. All the way until he goes out the gate and gets back in his truck.

Jayzuz! What HAS this country come to?

Glub!

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Hot! AND muggy. What a gummy, awful day! Pushing 90 degrees at 7:15 a.m., in 39% humidity.

Oh! There’s pool dude…speakin’ of jobs you’re glad you don’t have! How he manages to clean pool after pool after pool in this hot, sticky weather, I can’t even imagine. Just cleaning my own pool is almost more than I can cope with: on a cool, dry day.

That guy is one of the crew that makes it possible to stay in my home…and not have to move into some baby-sitting old-folkerie.

Hmmmm….  Let’s see…how many folks DOES it take to keep me here?

1. Pool Dude
2. Cleaning Lady from Heaven
3, 4, 5. Gerardo and his crew
6. Plumber
7. Electrician
8. Uber driver

At least! And that’s not counting my son, who does the work (and the thinking) of about 10 people.

No doubt there are more. Fair number of baby-sitters, eh?

Don’t know when it’s EVER been so hot-and-muggy. What a nasty morning! Definitely not a day that you’d like to spend working outdoors. 

Argh! What next, Lord?

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Why does everything crash on your head at once?  Ever notice that? Let one thing go wrong, and EVERYTHING ELSE goes haywire!

Just now I’m trying to cook a piece of salmon on the grill…and not having much luck. Appears the gas burners are on the fritz.

They seem to be burning..but…on “low as low can go.” Can’t fire the thing up enough to actually COOK the meat.

This, …

  • While my son has purloined my car, so I can’t get to a repair shop
  • While it’s so hot you can hardly breathe out there
  • While the babysitter my son hired to supervise my every moment (and prevent me from sipping a glass of wine…) hasn’t shown up — and probably went to the home of a neighbor whose street number is the same as mine (just one block north)
  • While I don’t have anything else in the fridge and so need that grill to work…or else will have to cope with a giant mess in the kitchen

Yep: the grill is definitely busted. I’m probably gonna have to buy a new one. And that’ll set me back a couple hundred bucks. Or more.

Uhhhhh….

Waaait-a-minute… The damn thing is set on “Low”!  Whaaa????  No wonder it won’t cook the fish!

That’s a mistake I’ve never made before…not in a good 50 years of outdoor grilling!!!  Senility: it’s sneakin’ up!

Or maybe it’s galloping up….