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House & Yard

WHO would do such a thing??????

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Holeeee GAWD!  I just went out in back and discovered that ALL of the watering system has been turned off.

When, I do not know. It sure as hell wasn’t turned off by me. Not in 110-degree heat, of that  you may be sure.

So either one of the yard dudes did it (not bloody likely) or some visiting workman vandalized my yard.

Think I caught it (I hope) in time to save at least some of the plantings. Just now, water is POURING to the citrus trees. They’re bone-dry…normally get water a couple times a week. But forgodsake: the hedges? The citrus trees — ALL of them? The climbing roses? The cat’s-claw vines in gay abandon….

WHAT KIND OF PERSON WOULD DO A THING LIKE THAT???

They had to have known what they were doing…because they turned off ALL the watering zones!  There’s half a dozen of them!!

And it has to have been someone who had a key, because the back gate is kept locked.

Holeeee shee-ut!

Well…I guess I’ll need to have all the locks on the exterior gates changed….how many is that?  Let’s see…

1…1…1…in back…plus the garage side door. That’s four. Oh, shee-ut! What d’you suppose it’ll cost to have a locksmith come in and do that?

More than I want to pay, you can bet. About four times more than I want to pay. 😮

Godlmighty. I hope they didn’t put any kind of poison on the trees and vines.

The plants look OK just now… Maybe the jerk figured just turning off the water to them would do the trick, in 110-degree heat.

Ohhhh man!  The hoses are POURING the water to them right now. It’s getting dark out, so I’m gonna have to turn off the faucets pretty soon. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll have to get back out there and turn the water back on.

This defies belief!

Why would anybody do such a thing????

Another Soggy Doggy Day in Arizona

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LOL! What was I was mooning on about yesterday, how even though it’s hotter than Hell here, at least the air is dry and the humidity is low?

Har har!!!!

Today we’re looking at a high of 114º, with humidity of 27%.  If that ain’t Rasty Nasty, the lovely American oil compound where we resided on the shore of the Persian Gulf, I’d like to know what it is!

Twenty. Seven. Percent of the air will be water!  Ugh!

Welp! The dawg and the human are back from this morning’s trek around the ‘Hood. The human is drenched with sweat. What a horrid morning!

We passed our friend Josie’s house: she who inherited the place from the City of Phoenix after her place was bulldozed to build an airport runway.

Pore folks live on airport property, ya know. So there she was, minding her own business as she dodged jet airplanes, and along came the City, grabbed her house, and gave her SDXB’s place. He had moved to Sun City — and so anxious was he to get away from his bosom enemy, Tony the Romanian Landlord, that he handed the house over to the City for a song.

Little did anyone (other than SDXB) know that the plumbing under the kitchen sink had been the target — several times — of SDXB’s amateur repair jobs. It had sprung a series of leaks, and each time he, being too parsimonious to hire a qualified craftsman, did the fix-it job himself.

Well…this time when it sprang another leak, the water flooded the entire damn house! Especially the kitchen, the laundry room, the dining room, the living room, and up the hallway into the bedrooms.

Good…
Lord…

So Josie came home to a deluge. All the carpeting had to be removed. Plumbing changed out. Cabinetry repaired. CAN you imagine?

These houses were cheaply built to begin with — though they’re far better constructed than today’s junk out in the suburbs. You don’t even want to know what resulted from SDXB’s amateur plumbing job.

😀  You don’t have to know: all you have to do is glance at the ripped-out carpeting piled in Josie’s front yard!

Anyway, just now it’s as wet outside in the open air as it is inside Josie’s house! High, ineffectual-looking clouds lurk off to the east and the north. Not a great day for hiking a mile or two around the neighborhood.

Ugh! I could brain my father for dragging me to Arizona. Too late: his brain resides inside an urn, as part of a pile of ashes.

But seriously: whatever could he have been thinking? Didn’t care, I guess, what hauling me to the middle of the desert and plopping me in a third-rate university would do to my optimistically planned academic career. Hey! Why does a woman need a Ph.D. from Berkeley, anyhow?

Day Is (Barely!!!) Dawning….

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Yep. Barely dawn and all Hell is already breaking loose. Jeez!  WHY does all the sh!t happen at once?

Latest antic: I go to flush the toilet and the thing goes SSSWWWWSHHHHHHHHHHHH and sprays water all over the goddam bathroom!

Sheee-ut!  and oh well: now all the fixtures and counters are nice and clean in there.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotta get someone over here to fix Harvey the Hayward Pool Cleaner, so thoughtfully trashed by yesterday’s workman.

This means, presumably, I have to approach some other pool company, since I suspect that “trashing” was a deliberate act. Because…it appears the pool dude stole several lengths of hose.

Dammit!!!!!!! 

Now I’ll have to call a bunch of neighbors to find out who they’re hiring, and then call around and call around and call around until I find someone to come fix this stuff.

*********

Grrr grrr grrrrrrrrrrrrr…..

Okay, I capitulated and called my regular pool company. Told them “someone” (har har) made off with several lengths of pool hose…and blah blah blah.

They’re supposedly gonna send someone over to try to fix that. Which means I get to sit here and sit here and sit here and sit here until the guy shows up. If he ever does. Then try to explain what’s happened….and good luck with that.

Dammmit!!!!!!!!!

I’m beginning to understand why my neighbor drained her pool several years ago and leaves it dry.

There surely is something to be said for that.

Problem is, when  you go to sell the house after leaving a pool empty for Gawd only knows how long, you’re looking at a WAD of EXPENSIVE repair bills.

Plus your back yard is graced by an ugly hole in the ground.

Better to keep the thing up from day to day, than to have hundreds or thousands in bills just as you’re ready to move out.

****

Ugh!! This deluge of crapola is beginning to make the prospect of moving into a old-folkerie like the Beatitudes almost look good. At least there, someone else has to ride herd on the repairs.

But…sheee-ut.  Just look at the joys promised by that link. Ain’t that just ducky?  You, too, can shed your household headaches by locking yourself up in a prison for old duffers.

You get to shed your cash, too. Those places grab every penny you’ve got in exchange for shepherding you into the next world. Such was the case with my father. Seriously: his old-folkerie glommed virtually all of his life savings. AND….he made a good living as a sea captain, plus he was one of the great tightwads of the Western World. So he had a sh!tload of money for them to snatch away from him.

*****

Dayum! But I’m MAD AS A CAT over that stolen pool equipment.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I guess if I’m gonna drain the damn pool, I’ll need to have some sort of platform built over it.

The next-door neighbor hasn’t done that. She just has an empty hole in the ground back there. Looks like HELL, and for my taste renders the back porch/yard essentially unusable.

You can bet she hasn’t covered it with a platform because any such thing will cost a goddam arm and a leg.  So I should spend hundreds or more likely thousands of dollars to cover the hole in ground with a wooden deck?

goddammit i don’t wanna do that.

Helle’s belles. Maybe I’d do better to jury-rig repairs to the dam thing now, then put the house on the market, sell up, and move into the horrifying Beatitudes.

But..to coin a phrase:

goddammit i don’t wanna do that.

I just LOATHE congregate living. And I do NOT want to live in a dormitory for old buzzards.

GAAAAAAAHHH!  STOP THE WORLD! I WANNA GET OFF!!!!!

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.

***

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.