Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

Yipe$ My mother would faint!

by

Seriously: my mother believed that when gasoline went over $1.00 a gallon, we would have so-o-o-shal-ism! No kidding: she actually said that, back in the day when about 30 cents a gallon was a lot. Today? Its $5 a gallon! Up by $1.35 over the past month. 

The poor woman would faint dead away if she could see this stuff today!

Well…y’know what? My dear son did me a favor by kiping that car of mine! That’s 87 berjillion bucks a tankful that I’m NOT paying. And y’know further what? I’m not having any problem getting around to all the places I need or want to go.

For one thing, my house is right in the middle of urban everything: three major grocery stores, a hair stylist, a Bookman’s, a veterinarian, a dermatologist…on and on and endlessly on. To my amazement, I’m discovering that I don’t need a car to get to about 90% of the places I’d normally go.

To gild that golden lily, a guy who lives kitty-corner across the street from the Funny Farm drives for Uber! For a tiny fraction of what it costs to own a car, he’ll drive me wherever I please.

So: that’s a pleasant surprise. 

Makes me feel almost like I’m back in London.

We never owned a car there, or even rented one long-term. If we wanted to go someplace in the city, we just hailed a cab. And if we were up to some elaborate sight-seeing, we’d rent a car for a day or for a weekend.

Truth to tell, I would never have imagined you could get by with that in a bourgeois American city like Phoenix. But by dayum! Here we are! No car, and no problem!

Seriously: weeks have merged into months, and to my amazement I’ve found no need to own a car over that time. 

Uber forms a major part of that: if I need to go to an appointment or whatnot, the guy across the street drives me there. My son still has his car, too; if he isn’t otherwise occupied (he usually is), he could drive me from point A to point B. So far, we haven’t had much need for that, though.

It’s convenient to own your own chariot, of course. But really: no more convenient than renting one. How convenient is it, anyway, to have to schlep the car to a maintenance garage every few weeks? And with a rental, someone else owns the thing, pays the registration & taxes on it, and covers the upkeep.

Between you’n’me… I’m pretty pleased with my son for dreaming up the idea that I need to get rid of that damn car!

Hotter Than the Hubs. Again.

by

Thursday afternoon, late in March. This ain’t no spring day: as we scribble, Wundground says it’s100 degrees in the backyard. Hotter than the Hubs of Hades, and then some!

Being stuck carless in Gaza makes a 100-degree day a bit of a problem. Though in theory I could walk to the nearby stores, doing so in the blasting sun through ambient 100-degree temps is…well…pretty much out of the question.

Gotta ask you: can you believe that? ONE HUNDRED DEGREES in freakin’ MARCH!!?!

Hauled the last hummingbird feeder around to the side yard — the only one our clandestine visitor hasn’t yet stolen or busted up. Since I can lock the side gate, we at least have a shot at keeping our hands on that one.

It really is so maddening that it makes me think seriously about selling up and moving someplace else.

Problem is, “someplace else” is gonna be some dreary old-folkerie. And y’know, THAT will be the end of me. I can’t live like that, and I won’t. Stick me in one of those places, and before long I’ll select the Final Exit.

So…what to do, what to do?   Hmmmm…

One thought is to install some hidden cameras in the front and side yards. Hide them well enough, and sooner or later they should provide a clue to who or what is raiding my home. But…then what?

Speaking of old-folkeries, I learned that the venerable Beatitudes old-folks home will send people to your house to take care of you! Called this afternoon to have someone come over and tell me about it.

Now, THAT would solve a big problem.

Truly, I hate loathe and despise institutional living. That’s why I just DON’T want to move into one of those places. But…if they’d send someone to you….well…now we’d have a whole ‘nother story.

Wonder-Cleaning Lady does a great job of keeping the shack clean, but she’s only here once every two weeks. Another worker would put someone in the house once a week, which, as I trudge further into decrepitude, would be HUGE.

Also, if I could get someone here once a week, they might be persuaded to schlep me to the grocery store. And THAT would truly be huge. Especially in 100-degree heat like we’re having now. It would relieve M’hijito of at least some concern, too: between Wonder-Cleaning Lady and a weekly visit from the old-folkery, two days a week would be covered by someone physically coming here to check on me.

Might be able to hire some other babysitter, too. Or at least arrange that I call M’hijito at a certain time each day, so he’ll know I’m more or less in one piece.

***

Meanwhile, the spavined hip seems to be s-l-o-o-w-l-y healing, a micrometer at a time. Today I can walk up the hallway without having to hold onto the walls — haven’t done that in a couple of weeks. Still hurts, but nothing like it did at the outset.

What on earth I did to hurt myself like this utterly escapes me. I haven’t fallen. Haven’t injured my leg  (that I know of). Haven’t done anything to myself.

Only thing I can figure is I must have twisted that joint in my sleep…and done so hard enough or long enough to inflict some lasting damage.

Wouldn’t you think that would have hurt enough that I would have noticed it? Even if I was sleeping, you’d think it would have waked me up. But if anything like that happened, I sure don’t recall it.

Ohhh well.

Helicopter is circling…and circling…and circling to the south of us. Can’t tell if it’s a cop copter, or just a traffic copter. The latter, I think: no other action is evident just now. It’s almost 5:00 pm., so the thing is almost certainly watching traffic. So that’s good: we can do without yet another cops-&-robbers drama.

Morning Gad-About

by

Wow! It’s wet and hot over at the park, whence the hound and I just returned. Didn’t realize it was so hot and sticky out, or we probably wouldn’t have started out. Yea verily: once a Dawg has got you into the park, you’re not gettin’ outta there easily! 😀

But whatever the weather, it’s always fun to walk around that upscale neighborhood. One of the houses, harbinger of a long and strange history, is now vacant and under major renovation. They’ve gutted the swimming pool, and it looks like they’ve pulled out just about everything in the home’s interior.

It’s on an upscale and desirable street, but the problem is that, as a corner house, it faces on an east/west mini-main drag that connects with the larger main drag running north/south through  the ‘Hood. This makes for a ton of traffic and repeating serenades from ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars. Handsome as the house is, it’s not one I would choose to buy. Or live in.

The previous occupants had a kid who got in trouble with the law, and that exploit bankrupted the family. They  lost their home, which has stood vacant for months. Apparently someone finally managed to glom it, and now it’s on its way to renovation and sale.

That young fella is not the first I’ve known to go to jail over a fling in bed with some chickadee. If you have a teen-aged son, teach him to use discretion about jumping into the sack with any female under the age of 21. The risk is just not worth the fun!

But…onward, onward: around the park. Many of those homes are on lots upwards of half an acre, so they’re spread-out and green and handsome and…expensive. It’s a tony part of the neighborhood, indeed.

Guess I’m glad I can’t afford to live over there, though. The park, not surprisingly, attracts any number of undesirables (great place for bums to sleep!), plus there’s always some noisy, nuisancy event going on. Not the best of all possible venues for a private home.

Huff-ata-puffa…

by

Ten after 7:00 p.m. Trot up the hall and ratchet down the AC thermostat. Hotter than the hubs in here!

Actually, it’s prob’ly not that hot. I think it’s a little humid. Sticky and dark outside. Artificially cooled yet still plenty warm inside.

Ruby the Corgi has taken up residence at the foot of the bed. The human has perched on the bed, too…hoping against hope that the air conditioner will cool the bedroom into the sleep-able range. Both critters are huffing and puffing in an uncomfortable atmosphere.

At this point — this absurdly early point! — what the human would like most is to go to sleep. That ain’t likely to happen anytime soon, though. And so we loaf.

LOL! The best sound in the world resonates from the neighbors’ backyard just now: little kids playing and laughing. What COULD be better?

They have two tiny ones whose lovely voices fill the evening air. If they could just stay little for the rest of my life, eh?

I do love this neighborhood. Can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in Sun City, where the silence of the mausoleum holds forth. But…I guess that doesn’t fit everyone, eh?

My father hated the sound of kids playing. That was for a surprisingly rational reason: he worked the swing shift and so had to sleep during the day and go to work on the docks all night. So what he wanted most in the afternoons was…silence. Freakin’ dead silence! And he would get amazingly crabby if any of the neighbors’ brats were playing outside in their yards while he was trying to sleep.

He did love Sun City, though. As did my mother. When fighter jets weren’t charging around out of Luke Air Force Base, yea verily the sound of the mausoleum did hold forth. It was so quiet out there as to be positively creepy.

And as for my mother? She wasn’t any fonder of the symphony of kids’ play than he was. In fact, I don’t think she cared much for children at all. I often wondered why they had me — why, in particular, she had me, since she didn’t seem to enjoy children around her. But she was nuts about her own child, so I made out all right. I guess.

Actually, I think her grandmother — my great-grandmother — urged her to have a kid. Hence, I materialized one day back in 1945. VE day: the last day of World War II. Hence the name: “Victoria.”

Meanwhile, as we scribble…I reckon my excellent son has about finished off his endless and grinding and lonely day’s work — his employer discovered they could dispense with office rent by making their employees work out of their own homes! — and by now must be getting up from his desk to putter around the house.

Hmmm…. I do believe that if I had to do a full day’s office work, I would not like to do it from home. Altogether too grinding!

When I worked for the Great Desert University — mostly teaching, plus a little editorial — I did work from home most of the time. But the university provided me with an office and all its accouterments, so it was easy to break the monotony by traipsing out to campus and spending a few hours on the job there. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for M’hijito: he works from home. Period.

That, I prob’ly would hate. But then…let’s face it: I hate work. 😀

Go-o-o-d Morning, America!

by

Just back from a mile-plus peregrination of the ‘Hood, dragged along by my furry boss. How can I count the ways I just wanna sit down and swill a cup of coffee?

Stumble over to the easy chair. Flop down in it. And…

RINGY-DINGY-DINGY!

Goddamned phone. A Goddamned phone solicitor on the other end.

I tell him where to make his next phone call and slam down the receiver.

Honest to Gawd. Phone soliciting should be illegal. Seriously: I realize it’s “freedom of speech” and all. But shouldn’t the rest of us have something like “freedom of privacy” or “freedom of peace and quiet”?

***

The neighborhood park is so lovely! I adore this area. Beautiful, quiet, upscale, affluent, right in the middle of everything

O’course it ain’t perfect. Right across the street from the park stands a house whose occupants fled after a pair of home invaders barged in, grabbed them, tied them up, threw them in the bathtub, and proceeded to loot the house.

So. If you live here…yeah: you keep your doors locked all the time. And you do NOT answer the door unless you know who’s on the other side and what they want.

But then…come ON! No place is safe. Just the other day some sh!thead barged into a madly upscale home in Fountain Hills, a mighty swell dive. And I’ll tellya: before that happened, I would have said Fountain Hills is as staid and secure as you can get, this side of Sun City.

My mother, who was scared of her own shadow, cowered in terror all the time she lived in Sun City. She dwelt behind heavily locked doors and windows. And yet…really…she was less terrorized out there than anywhere else we lived.

Something must have happened to her. If it did, she never told me. But really: you wouldn’t act like that unless you had some reason to be scared.

Me, I find the company of a dog amply reassuring. Ruby is no German shepherd (not by a long shot!). But she does alert whenever anyone comes around.

And really, that’s about all a dog can do for you. You’re the one who has to take care of yourself: get to a safe place, grab your pistol, call the cops, whatEVER.

Ruby: the four-legged burglar alarm.
😀

BING BONG!

by

Amazon Dude! He/She/It just left a bag of fine, overpriced dry dog food on the doorstep.

M’Hijito was supposed to take me to the local supermarket to pick up…the same. I’d forgotten I’d ordered the stuff online.

He hasn’t shown up yet. So….that gives me a paroxysm of Motherly Worry, but on the other hand, it relieves me of one last hassle of the day.

M’Hijito works out of his house, mostly online and on the phone for his vast employer. This keeps him ludicrously busy (as in it would drive me crazy!). So I expect he’s rassling with his bosses’ clients just now. WhatEVER: this delivery means I don’t have to traipse to the hated grocery store. Ruby has her food and my feet are comfortably ensconced on the hassock.

😀

I think what I’ll do, by way of strategy, if we find he’s not able to come over and schlep me to the store for the other stuff, is just put that chore off until morning. They open at 6:00 a.m., which provides a good shot at walking over there before it gets too hot. Got about a dozen items to buy…

But, this new roller-cart I bought is just the business! The thing makes it possible to grab a week’s worth shopping items and ROLL THEM HOME. Free of hassle. Free of the damn car. Free of everything except the occasional nuisance sh!thead.

Think I’ll wait, though, until tomorrow, partly to dodge the day’s-end heat and partly to dodge the legions of sh!t-heads. If I get to the store as dawn cracks, I should be able to get home before the panhandlers hit the streets.

Jeez. What a place we live in!