Coffee heat rising

House & Yard

Real-Estate Dreamin’

by

The idle(!!) mind returns to the fine overpriced patio homes I saw yesterday while roaming around the neighborhood. Parked between the canal and the neighborhood that DXH still inhabits, one of those places would be exceptionally convenient for my son. And about three blocks from a major supermarket, allowing me to stock up on groceries without ever thinking about having to drive to a store.

Uhm…

But…waitwait! Don’t I already live in such a ‘hood? Maybe even better: the Funny Farm is not just within walking distance of ONE market, but of FOUR: a Sprouts, a Safeway, an Albertson’s, and a Fry’s! It’s a three-minute drive (or an easy walk) to DXH’s place.

OHHHHkayyy… So much for that excuse to spend money and discommode oneself for a month or so! 😀

Out of sheer luck (given that I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was doing back in the house-hunting day), my present house happens to be located in just about as convenient a spot as possible.

My son’s car makes the location no less convenient for my son than the one down the street from his dad’s place.

The house on Central Avenue…well, it is nigh onto Central, a busy and noisy commuter thoroughfare.

It’s really no closer to shopping than where I am…and as a matter of fact, it has fewer nearby outlets.

Truth to tell, this li’l house here — the one in the neighborhood that my Realtor friend brought to me lo! these MANY years ago — very probably is in about the best location available within Maricopa County.

> It’s in a solidly upper-middle-class residential district

> Trains and busses serve the ‘Hood pretty much 24 hours a day

> Not one but three major hospitals serve the area (John C. Lincoln, Abrazo, and HonorHealth). A number of independent doctors practice out of offices within walking distance.

> The house is within easy walking distance of three major supermarkets (a Sprouts, an Albertson’s, and a Fry’s). And not one but two specialized computer stores.

> And if you have a kid, two excellent K-12 schools and one of the best public high schools in the city serve the district. Plus several private schools.

What more is to ask for? Truth is, this location is by far superior to any others I’ve seen in the past few months.

And…ahem… It’s paid for. 😉

Truth to tell, I don’t at all need a car to live here. This is a perfect neighborhood for an old bat who is reduced to having to get around on foot or by public transit!

And furthermore…  If I’m able to hang in here until I croak over (not unlikely, given my relatives’ track record for health & longevity), my son will inherit a nice house in a pleasant neighborhood that is paid for. 

Hm.

Soooo….no. I reckon I’m NOT interested in any kewl patio homes on the high end of tony North Central Avenue. Who needs it?

😀

Batteries Battened Down…

by

Chortle!  Have you noticed that smoke alarm batteries invariably pick the middle of the night to run out of juice?

How do the things know?  😀

So…it was climb up on a ladder and unhook the living-room alarm from its seat on the ceiling. Disconnect the juice from the beeper.

HUH…that’s the last battery on the ceiling, by dayum! Guess I’ve been…uhm…remiss (not to say plug-lazy) about getting someone over here to fix the gadgets.

After the holidays are over, I’ll have to call a Happy Handyman to come over and replace all half-dozen of them. And…after this, not be so darned lazy about the things.

Why do gadgets of this sort invariably pick THE most inconvenient  moment to go on the fritz?

Ever notice that?

How DO they know?

Holiday Confuse-a-Bat

by

😀  Ohhh-kayyy….  It’s Christmas Eve. WHAT am I supposed to be doing today?

Seriously: if we had a plan, I failed to enter it on the calendar. And since nothing can be entered with any certainty in the agèd brain, natcherly I cannot remember whether m’hijito and I had something up…or not.

I assume he’s going to his dad’s or to his friends’ place. His pals usually have a nice holiday shindig. But I don’t recall being invited to it this year…which doesn’t mean I wasn’t invited: only that I can’t remember.

DON’T get old, whatever ya do!!!!!

I kid you not. 

In the Department of Old Age, at this point of course (as you who have moved homes a time or three must know), you’re no doubt living in your last own-it-yourself home. Next one will either be a motel room in an old-folks’ institution or a box in the ground. Or maybe a nice urn for ashes.

But…gee! The other day Ruby and I were walking on the northerly fringe of Upper Richistan, along the bank of the canal bordering that tony district. And what should we see but…wow! THE coolest little tract of very pricey-looking patio homes, laid out along the river-like canal, below a view of the North Mountains. 

Hm.

It’s in a walled development, suggesting a well organized (yeah: expensive) homeowner’s association that takes care of the grounds and amenities.

Gosh.

Walk past, southeasterly.

On the way home, walk past it again, northwesterly.

Could we afford that????

Consider: no more monthly bills for the pool cleaning. No more monthly bills for Gerardo (Yard Dude) and his crew. Your monthly HOA bill no doubt would cover regular security guard service as well as the pool and grounds care.

Hm, indeed…

Very innaresting. I may go back and look at that place more closely; maybe watch for the next “For Sale” sign.

On the other hand…  My house has no nuisancey homeowners’ association to cope with. My yard and pool guys do what I ask them to do, not what they’re assigned to do by the local HOA. And from here I can walk (not have to drive) to not one, not two, but THREE very fine grocery stores, a computer store/repair shop, a Best Buy, and (as if I cared) an excellent restaurant.  If Ruby flies into a yap-fest, few of the neighbors can hear her, and none of them will belly-ache about it.

Hmmmm…

Yeah: no. I reckon this place is going to be the shack M’hijito inherits. If he wants to live here, bully for him. If not, he’ll net about half a million bucks for it. Between that and the value of his shack, he should be able to buy the Great Mansion of the Western World. Looks to me like the best strategy just now is to lay low and cling to my dollars.

And go skinny-dipping in my very own backyard pool! 

😀

Pre-Xmas, Continued…

by

Ruby the Corgi seems to have gotten over whatever ailed her, the last time we met in these environs. No barfing(!!). No urgency to get outside.

Luz, the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, just showed up at the door. That was a jolt: I didn’t expect her this week!!!

Fortunately the house was sorta kinda almost picked up. So I didn’t look like quite the chucklehead that I am.

Ohhh well.

This morning: walked and walked and walked all over the ‘Hood. Gorgeous day.

Over on the east side of Main Drag East is a somewhat tonier section of the ‘Hood. Still tract houses, yes: but some look a little larger than ours; some look better built. They have irrigation instead of “desert landscaping” (read “gravel yards”), so the landscaping is pretty and much more inviting than ours.

Briefly, I wondered whether I could afford one of those houses.

VERY briefly: Of course not!!!! No, I cannot afford to maintain an irrigated lot full of mow-it-once-a-week grass. Nor could I afford to air-condition one of those palaces. Or pay the taxes on it.

So much for that idea. 😀

One of Those Days: Adumbrated

by

Hallelujah, brothers & sisters!  

Dunno what brought Ruby the Corgi under the weather last night, but this morning she seems to be miraculously healed! 

Yes. She’s scarfed down the usual dose of 1/3 can of dawg food. She’s patrolled the backyard — twice, come to think of it. Now she’s standing out there waiting for a burglar to chase off.

😀  Funny little beast. 

At any rate, today she’s acting like her old, healthy self, so I assume whatever ailed her must have been something she ate or some very fast-passing bug.

Whenever the human feels like getting off its duff, we’ll go out and patrol the neighborhood. LOL! The locals must be so glad they have a 30-pound protector looking out after them.

It’s a neighborhood that has much changed over the past few years, yet remains weirdly the same. Our dearest neighbor, locally known as The Ole Guy, disappeared with his wife some time back. He had told me he thought he was going to have to lock her up in an old folks’ home. And I’ll tellya: that guy would never imprison her in a place like that and then walk off, leaving her alone. If he put her in an old-folkerie, you can be sure he put himself there, too.

Meanwhile, SDXB has moved to Sun City, where he took up with New Girlfriend. He seems happy enough, though the last I heard old age has caught up with him and he’s been pretty sick.

I’d be sick, too, if I tried to live in Sun City. My parents proudly retired and moved to Sun City when I went off to college. They thought it was just the business. I thought it was abhorrent.

Seriously: you couldn’t pay me to live there: a ghetto for old folks.

But they thought it was The Bidness. His brother, Ed, and Ed’s harridan of a wife moved there. And my parents’ best friends from Saudi Arabia — Ruth and Hollis — joined them. My mother must have been thrilled to see Ruth move in. The in-laws: not so much, though.

But for me, the place had one major trait working against it: a kind of toxic sameness. All the houses looked alike. All the yards looked alike. All the people looked alike.

The people: old, middle-class, and white. Once a black couple dasted to move in there. They literally were hounded out by the locals.

Hereabouts: I haven’t seen an African-American type move in to these parts. Well, no: one bachelor bought a house a block or two away. But he moved on. Hounded? I doubt it: probably found it costs a lot more to live here than one would expect.

Property taxes are surprisingly high in these parts — probably, I suspect, because the houses are over-valued. Truth to tell, these same models occupy a fair amount of Sun City, which was largely built out by the same developer. A few are a little bigger than SC shacks — mine has four bedrooms, which you surely wouldn’t find out there. And the yards have six-foot walls, with city-owned alleys running behind them. (No alleys in S.C.)  But otherwise, the two developments are much the same.

Except…we have kids!

How can one live without the sound of kids carrying on outside?

Seriously: I love the racket of kids playing. Sun City — devoid of anyone under the age of 50 — was silent as a tomb. Well…except for the damn fighter jets blasting over from Luke Air Force Base. That was a racket.

The Ole Guy…The Ole Neighborhood

by

Took a hike up to the corner shopping center, there to pick up some not-very-necessaries and socialize with the locals. On the way home, I walked through the  northwest corner of the ‘Hood, an area that SDXB and I used to frequent when he lived here in Phoenix (before he made his escape to Sun City). At the time, I dwelt closer to noisy, crime-ridden Nineteenth Avenue. SDXB and I used to walk all around in that quarter, just about every day.

One house we passed almost every day belonged to a fella we called “The Ole Guy.” What a nice man he was. He and his wife had lived here forever, and by the time SDXB and I came on the scene, they were gettin’ on in years. She was usually indoors, but he liked to putter around in his yard and with his car, and so he would often be out in front. SDXB and I would hang out with him for awhile as we made our rounds of the’Hood.

Well, of course as you know (if you read FaM much), SDXB decamped to Sun City, chased off by the noisy new light-rail and the blossoming crime rate.

My house is far enough from the damn trains that I can’t hear their racket. And as for the murderers, rapists,, and burglars? Make. My. Day, Gentlemen! 

Plus I had lived in Sun City, hated it, and never ever wanna go back there again. Any day I’d rather have crime than stodgey. 😀

So I stayed.

So did the Ole Guy — for awhile. But soon enough, he had to deposit his wife in a nursing home, pretty much trashing his life and his joy. He disappeared from the scene — believe he moved into the same old-folkerie — and the house was sold to some anonymous suburban types. Dunno that I’ve ever even seen the present owners.

If owners they are: they could be renters, for all I know. 😀

But oh my! I do miss the Ole Guy. What a nice man he was: to my mind an emblem of the neighborhood and all that’s good about it.

And I do miss SDXB, who seems to be living happily ever after in Sun City.

Not “happily” enough to lure me back out there. For one thing, SDXB has a lovely new girlfriend, and I surely wouldn’t want to intrude on that relationship. And for another….ohhhhh boy, did I ever hate living in Sun City. And I ain’t a-goin’ back out there, no many how many old friends of mine have decamped to the place.

So…dayum! I feel like I’m the Last Vestige of the Old Neighborhood.

Which is silly, of course. There are no vestiges: just people who move in and people who move out.

But I suppose the ironic and kinda funny thing about it is that nowadays I’m the equivalent of The Ole Guy. Yeah: the ancient resident who’s lived here since the pyramids were built: that one.

Why stay?

* Too much work to pack up and decamp. (Can you spell laziness?)
* Kids. Migawd, I do love the sound of kids playing! Why would you want to live in a mausoleum where no kidlets are allowed?
* Centrality. We are smack in the middle of everything. The main reason I was trotting around on foot is that M’hijito imagines an old bat shouldn’t be bucketing around the homicidal streets of Phoenix (NEVER have a kid who’s an insurance adjuster!), and so he has protectively purloined the Dog Chariot and  locked it up in his garage. B…F…D…, say I: my house’s location is so superbly central that I don’t need a car to get to several grocery stores (one or two of them damn fancy), a doctor, a dentist, a vet a..this, a that, and another thing. A train line and two bus lines go by right up the street. And an Uber driver lives two houses down from me.
* Upper-middle-class upper-middle-itude. The place is upscale but not upscale. Handsome, cleanly cared for, moderately priced. It is, in short: just my speed, when it comes to real estate.

So…really, this is almost as good as San Francisco used to be for me and my parents, where we never moved our car out of the garage more than once or twice a month.

I figure I can live here until I drop dead, or until I simply cannot walk a block or so. Whichever comes first.

LOL!

But it does have to be said: when you’ve lived in a place for a long time, you do miss your old neighbors and you do miss the good-ole-days. Someday, no doubt, someone will miss me and my funny-looking corgis. But until then…

Well. I intend to reign supreme!

😀