Coffee heat rising

House & Yard

Slow Morning in Citrus Central

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Loafing my way through the morning… 😀  The miniature killer watchdog has dragged me around the park and through the neighborhood. We have chowed down. And now we loaf.

One of the nicest things about loafing, here at the Funny Farm, IS the Funny Farm. It’s such a pleasant place to sit around doing as little as possible.

Just now the automated watering system is drenching the decorative plants and the trees. The automated pool system is running the swimming pool’s sparkling water through a set of filters. The Human is considering whether to get off its duff and walk over to the Sprouts, or whether ’tis better to sit around munching chocolate chips and guzzling coffee. The Dawg is busy guarding the backyard.

To my mind, the biggest issue or problem with staying in your freestanding home into (and with any luck, through) your dotage is having to wrangle the hired help. Most are honest & hard-working, but some leave something to be desired in those categories.

The citrus trees, for example, need to be pruned. Since the beloved Gerardo hasn’t done that job so far this year, I’m assuming either he doesn’t want to do it or he doesn’t know how.

But that’s a generous assumption: OF COURSE he knows how to prune the damn citrus. He’s been working here, in darkest Citrus Central, for years. That he hasn’t done the job by now means he doesn’t want to be bothered. Since we know he surely does know how to do the job, we also know he doesn’t wanna do the job.

And that means I’ll have to track down some new victim to do the job. And in the department of don’t wanna, that one ranks high.

Guess I should annoy him by phoning and asking if he’ll come back.

But…ugh! Not now.

Beautiful Dog-&-Human Night

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Ruby the Corgi dragged her Human all over the north part of the neighborhood this evening. And what a beautiful evening it is! Really one of those incredible Arizona nights…just gorgeous.

We walked northward, past my old Arizona Highways colleague’s place: Jerry Jacka, one of the great landscape photographers of the Southwest. Then up past our now-absent friend Marge’s house.

She, we assume, must either have passed or have been consigned to The Beatitudes, a skin-crawling prison for the elderly. She appeared to be well into her 80s…maybe even older than that.

Her house — a classic Southern-California style 1970s ranch house — has been swarming with workmen. It’ll be interesting to see what transpires…

She told me she wanted to leave it to her son, who lives out of state. She wanted him to have it as an outpost to use when he’s here on business, which is apparently every now and then.

Our grown kids, though, usually do NOT have the same ideas about large and expensive investments as we do. My guess is, he’s cleaning it up and fancying it up so he can put it on the market.

It’s really not in an ideal location: only a block or two south of Main Drag North, one of the most hectic surface streets in the city. When you live next to a busy road like that, you get used to the racket from the traffic. But…whaddaya bet Sonny hasn’t done any such thing? He probably thinks it’s a zoo up there, and has no intention of hanging onto a piece of real estate pasted to the edge of that unholy road.

Ohhh well. Nothing stays the same, eh?

 

Lock It Down!!!!!

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Arghhhh!  I have GOT to get special training on not answering the door, on not speaking to strangers, and on uttering the sound N-N-N-N-O-O-O-O!

Crimineee! The crooks are storming me from all directions.

Did I tell you about the Tree Dudes?

A crew of guys showed up at the front door saying they were here to trim the overgrown eucalyptus-like monster in the west yard.

Uhhhh….ooohkayyyyyy……

{huh?  Did I hire these guys??}

So they bang around and thud around, getting ready to assassinate my huge west-side tree, the one that keeps the air-conditioning bills down on that side of the house

About then, my son calls on the phone. I tell him what’s up. He says GET RID OF THEM!

So I end up having to toss that bunch out in the cold (or rather, the heat), just as they’re gearing their saws to chop down everything in sight.

Good riddance to that bunch.

Here’s the problem with Old Age: you can’t remember what you did ten minutes ago, much less a day or three ago!

I cannot remember whether I agreed to hire these guys to prune that gigantic tree. My son says I did not. Just in time does he say that: minutes to spare before they started to assassinate my trees. And my bank account.

My neighbor has (I think) a camera by her front door. She does NOT answer the door, no matter who’s out there. If she can see an image of someone she’s willing to talk to, she’ll open up. Otherwise, you and your fellow scam artists can stand there till the snow falls.

I think I’m going to install one of those. Hers allows her to see who’s out there without having to open the door. I can do that, too, by looking out through a window…but that allows the “guest” to see me, too. In Terri’s case, she can see who’s out there, but they can’t tell whether anyone’s home. So they can ring the doorbell to their idiot heart’s content, get nowhere, and let Terri go out in the back yard until the ring-fest ends.

We seem to get more and more hustlers showing up at the door, trying to peddle this junk or faze that scam past you. So…a way to see who’s out there without them seeing me would be MOST welcome. 

Coyote Jamboree

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A pair of coyotes have found the neighborhood park. Ruby and I were over there yesterday…and kinda dodged out of the way.

{grump! crab!!}

Decided against taking her over there for this morning’s dog’n’human stroll. Not that I don’t think I can fend off a coyote (I do carry a shilelagh with me, partly for that purpose). But…well…just not in the mood for confrontation, whether of the human or the canid variety.

And so, we loaf.

Lately, I’ve daydreamed about moving back out to Sun City. 

Heh!

Know what roams around the streets and backyards of Sun City?

Ayup! Coyotes!

Two legs, four legs…what’s the difference, eh?

Neighbor across the street — one of the WonderAccountants — reports that his neighbor on the other side from my house croaked over last night.

That makes me feel so sad. I didn’t know them well — just to say “hello” as the dog and I stumble up the sidewalk in front of their house. But they are unmistakably nice, kind, lovely neighbors.

I wonder if his widow will stay put, or move into some more elder-oriented digs? I hope she stays…but…you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, eh?

Heh… One thing I don’t gotta do is move out of this house…and surely not to horrible Sun City.

My parents bought a house out there when my father retired. I just hated that place!

Actually my present house was built by Del Webb, the guy who engineered Sun City. But for some reason, I find it a lot more comfortable than my parents’ place. Something about the design, the size…whatEVER. Plus the backyards are all fenced in (none o’ that nonsense in Sun City!!!!), and the house has a gorgeous pool. And it’s close to shopping — from here I can easily walk (!!) to a Sprouts, to an Albertson’s, to a Fry’s, and to a Walgreen’s. None o’ THAT nonsense in SC, either! 😀

And we have kids. That, IMHO, is a very big deal, indeed. I do love the sound of kids playing.

Anyway, I wonder what the surviving neighbor will do?

Wonder if my son would like to buy that house, if she decides to trudge off to an old-folkerie? How KEWL would that be?

Well.

I’d think it was kewl. He’d probably think it was a PITA. 😀

Ohhh well. One crazy idea after another, eh?

LOL! I don’t wanna move, that’s for sure. Main reason: I have moved altogether too many times in my life, between spending ten years in the Middle East and then gallivanting all over California for six or eight years. Never wanna fill up another cardboard box with newspaper-wrapped dishes again!

EVER!

And truth to tell… I think (hope!!) I’ll be able to engineer things so that I can stay here in the Funny Farm until such time as I croak over.

As long as I don’t have a stroke that seriously disables me, that should be possible. I’d have to hire someone to come in — probably every day — but given the cost of an old-folks’ prison, the expense might not be any more than having to move into an old-folkerie.

Hire someone to come babysit — maybe even stay overnight in a spare bedroom, if necessary. Get someone to deliver food. And get Uber to tote me around the city…  And basically, that would be about it.

Yes, it would cost more than it’s costing me now to live here. But not THAT much more. And very surely nothing like as much as an old-folkerie would cost.

Well. It’s something to consider.

Gorgeous morning

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It’s already 8:30 and the day is brain-banging GORGEOUS. Beautiful clear skies. Balmy temps. Dawg yapping at the passers-by. What more could anyone want, eh?

Well…hmmmm…  Absence of pain, for one thing. Whatever went wrong with my hip is still wrong. Hurts like the dickens to get out of a chair, to say nothing of limping across a room.

Ohhh welll…. Thæs overrode; swa may thisse…

Pool Dude came by this morning, bless him! (oooooohhhh beloved Pool Dude!!!!) He left a bill instead of waiting three minutes so I can write him a check. So, alas, the much-deserved payment for his work will have to wait a week to be delivered.

Rummaging through The Economist, one of my fave periodicals, I come across a spread on (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, the hell-hole where I grew up.

Doesn’t sound like it’s a whole lot better than it was in the 1950s. Sure am glad I’m not there now!

Hmmmm….here comes some sorta air-borne vehicle. ……naaaahhhh…. It drifted off to the north. Dunno what it was: not a prop-driven airplane or a jet, that’s for sure. ohhhh well….

The kids who bought Sally’s house (right behind the Funny Farm) put these stupid rotating vents up on the roof. They make a racket whenever a breeze blows. Dunno how the kids can stand it! I’d have blasted the things to Kingdom Come by now.

They also got some guy to patch the roof…with shingles that don’t match the ones that were installed when Sally lived there. That’s…cute.

What IS the matter with people?

Makes a high-rise on North Central Avenue look good. And that’s sayin’ something.

Hmmm…something terrible. 

Lately, I’ve been contemplating just such a high-rise as a possible alternative to moving into the horrifying old-folkerie called The Beatitudes. An apartment stuck on the N-teenth floor of an old-folks’ storage bin does NOT appeal to me. A private apartment in a 15-story rabbit warren doesn’t look much better…but…

On the other hand, I know my son would like to have this house — the sooner the better. And I’d sure like him to have it. But not at the cost of my having to move into some garden spot that I’d wish I’d never seen.

It’s crossed my mind to suggest that he and I trade houses. Then he’d have this place and I’d have his pretty little 1950s red-brick bungalow, within strolling distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Yuppie Supermarket.

Trouble is, those houses were built before there was such a thing as air-conditioning. They were “cooled” (after a fashion) with whole-house swamp coolers. These are none too efficient…as a practical matter, the residents in those days just spent the summers up north, in the high country were the weather was tolerable.

And the houses are, as is appropriate for swamp cooling, leaky boxes. So when you turn on the air-conditioner, you’re actually air-conditioning the whole damn block.

Hmmmmm….  Another strategy we could undertake:

  • I buy his place.
  • He moves in here.
  • I sell his place, and…
  • Use the proceeds to buy an apartment in a Central Avenue high-rise.

Probably couldn’t get enough for his house to get into one of those little boxes in the sky. But…hmmm…really, what do I care? I’ll only be here for a few more months or years — a decade at the very longest. No reason why I couldn’t decamp to a box in the sky, paid for on time. Lots and lots of time….

My mother and I lived in one when we took up residence in San Francisco after we left (un)lovely Saudi Arabia. I loved the place!

Now, I’m not a 12-year-old anymore, and so I no longer regard running up and down the interior fire escapes as an entertaining pastime. But still… Those places are just a few blocks down the road from the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Grocery Store. The train goes right past the front and will drop you off at the store. Mwa ha ha! I’d never have to drive again!!

Progress Being Made…

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Hey!!!! Here’s something weird: the hip pain has slacked off SO DRAMATICALLY that it hardly hurts at all to walk around the Funny Farm!

Whaaaaaaa?????

Getting out of the bathtub? Didn’t feel like I’d better have the phone close at hand to call the paramedics.

Making the bed? Swift, tidy, and easy. And…uhm…most important: pain free! 

WhatEVER would cause such a dramatic shift?

It still hurt when I rolled out of the sack this morning But after a couple of hours? The pain is gone!

Well: almost gone. About 95% pain-free…

Why? I can’t even imagine! 

Within the hour, M’Hijto will show up at the door, eager to schlep me to the Mayo Clinic. We already had an appointment out there for a routine visit. He (and I) have figured we can inflict this hip injury on MayoDoc this morning.

But…noooooooo! Apparently NOT!

One can only hope, I suppose.

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It dawned on me this morning (nothing like dawn to brighten up a morning, eh???) that after I’d spent a day NOT sitting in my favorite overstuffed leather easy chair, the hip pain calmed down. WAY down.

???  WHY???

Only thing I could figure is that something in the upholstery is either not supporting the spine or is pushing my back into some unknown weird position.

So today I’ve been trying to avoid that fine brown throne.

Easier said than done: that is THE loafing chair for me, the centerpiece of the family room. Plopping myself down there is so habitual that I don’t even think HEY STUPID! GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!! 

But the room does host another mega-comfortable chair, one far nicer and fancier than the leather Crate & Barrel number. And that would be an amazing, sophisticated, you-want-Fancy-Dan? wooden rocker from Thos. Moser. It’s all wood, no squishy cushions. Dowels form the back support. Very, very handsome. Very, very pricey: a creature from the time when I had…you know…a job. 

After perching in this chair for some fraction of an hour, I can get up with almost no pain. And I’ll tellya: that feels like some kinda miracle!

Here’s my son at the door…in a rage, for reasons unknown. And so…awaaaayyyy!