Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

Wetter than a By-Gawd!

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Yech! This has got to be one of the nastier mornings I’ve had the privilege of living through. By the time Ruby and I got back from circumnavigating the park, I was SOAKED with sweat and, presumably, dew. She’s still swilling water, poor li’l thing.

Ugly weather! Sticky, gray, and overcast.

Ohhhh well. At least that meant fewer dog-lovers to have to get around.

WHY are people so stupid about their dogs???  If I hear one more idiot coo, “Ohhh, don’t worry…they just want to pwayyyyyy,” I’m going to wring the turkey’s neck. And maybe his dog’s neck, too.

{Nooooo, stupid. She just wants to remove your dog’s head…}

Anyway, we made it around the park without having to dodge the usual complement of those clowns, mostly because of the icky weather.

Walked past the house where the scion of the family got caught fu*cking some girl who was a few days below the age of consent. He went to jail. His parents went bankrupt. Their once-handsome home is now a decrepit wreck. What a disaster…all the way around!

Something similar happened to a friend of mine. She managed to escape bankruptcy and hang onto her home. These folks seem to have lost the house.

Wow!  If you’ve got a teenaged son, be sure and teach him the meaning of the word “jail-bait.” Yes, sexist, yes nasty term…but it’s the dead-on truth. Get caught diddling an under-age girl, and the government will destroy you AND your family. No kidding.

Hot. Wet. And soggy out there. Mighty glad to get back inside the Funny Farm.

Let’s check the calendar…what new horrors today?

Not many: that’s for sure. Too hot for horrors, I guess!

😀  Seriously: it is too hot to go abroad. So you can’t get into very many shenanigans. Alas.

Glub!!!!!

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You thought Arizona has “a dry heat,” right?  HAR HAR!!! Just now it feels like Ras Tanura did, when we lived there on the shore of the Persian Gulf: HOT and WET, WET, WETTER THAN WET.

Ugh. Ghastly morning!

Ruby and I: just back from circumnavigating the hood, through this very soggy doggy day. Ugh! Indeed.

M’hijito is gallivanting around the Midwest on business. No idea when he’ll be back: presumably in a couple of days. Looking forward to his return…and am curious to learn how things went for him there.

Traipsing traipsing doggy-traipsing...around the park. Past the house that’s having to be completely rebuilt after the previous owners trashed it. Through the ‘Hood: a pretty place to live.

Every time I walk around this place, I thank my lucky stars that I stumbled upon a Realtor named John Shackleford. He’s the one who brought me to this place, when I was looking for a house of my own after having escaped marriage. It really is a nice area; North Central but not North Central: therefore not North Central prices. That’s how I was able to afford to move here.

My first house here, which I shared with SDXB, was less than a block from the dratted light-rail line. That thing made a lot of noise and, not surprisingly, imported a less than desirable population. SDXB eventually moved out, but bought a house in the neighborhood — actually, just a block from my present palace.

Eventually, I decided to move out of the place we’d occupied — after our idiot city fathers installed that light-rail up Conduit of Blight Blvd, the noise and the human trash from the thing made for an unpleasant place to live. I’d planned to move out of the neighborhood — probably to Scottsdale, East Phoenix, or back to the Encanto district. But this place — a block from where SDXB had moved, came up…far enough from the horrid light-rail to be reasonably quiet, just a block from Lover-Boy, and handsomely renovated by the sellers.

SDXB subsequently moved to Sun City, where — being a stodgy sort — he’s very happy. I’d lived there with my parents and just hated it, so refused to follow him out there.

Soooo…here I am, ensconced happily enough on the edge of unholy Sunnyslope (you don’t wanna know!) and within a few short minutes’ drive of my son’s house. It’s incredibly convenient:

  • 3 major supermarkets (one of them a Sprouts) within easy walking distance
  • a doctor’s office, in the same realm
  • a Walgreen’s: same precinct
  • a veterinarian within walking distance
  • a train running up a main drag, but far enough from the house to avoid noise
  • armies of busses running up the two main drags to the east

One thing is for sure: you don’t need a car here. And that’s good, since my son filched mine…for my own good, dontcha know.

😀  I don’t happen to agree with him that I shouldn’t be driving — that’s BS. But truth to tell, in this location I don’t have to drive! Everything I need is within easy walking distance, even including a doctor and a vet. To gild that lily, a guy across the street is driving an Uber cab.

Seriously: if Uber stays in business, it will be several years before I’m forced to move into a horrible old-folkerie. With any luck, indeed, I’ll die before that happens. And so I will live out most or even all of my last few years in my own calm, quiet and pretty little place. With my own swimming pool, my own yard, and my own funny little dog.

What more could one ask?

Amor de Amazon…

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How do I love Amazon? Let me count the ways!

Here we are loafing on the bed with the dog, watching a fierce-looking storm come a-rolling in. And what have we done that’s even faintly useful?

Well: one real useful thing! We just ordered a leaf-skimming net from the beloved Amazon.

This gadget is a device much needed for maintaining the Hole in the Ground into Which to Pour Money…and with delivery to the front door, it’s only eleven bucks!

JOY!

So tomorrow we’ll be able to lift out the leaves that blow into the drink tonight. Pool Dude will be happy: our old net was plumb wore out. And the price was beyond right!

EEEK!

and Wow! What a storm!  You should see the wind, the flying dirt, and the sailing plant matter! And the neighbors’ yard decorations. 😀

How glad are Ruby and the Human to be inside and watching this storm from the comfort of our bed? Let us count the ways!! 

Let’s see what Wunderground sez:

Active Warning! Severe Thunderstorm Warning!

Heh!!! Ya don’t say?

Eeek, we say to that. Eeeek! 

Hmmmm…Loookit there: raindrops the size of quarters! That’s a bit of a phenomenon.

But oddly, not very much of this slug-sized rain is falling. Huh…barely enough to get the pavement wet.

Weird. But then….Arizona is always weird.

Hope my son has battened down his hatches. He’s out of town for a business meeting. But…he does know enough to secure the place before fleeing.

Now it’s SERIOUSLY pouring: large, fat raindrops, in gay profusion.

Well, one thing’s for sure: we won’t have to add water to the pool tomorrow! 😀

But we will have to add a sh!tload of chemicals. Hope we have enough.

Dunno if Pool Dude really is supposed to surface tomorrow. He’ll have his hands full tomorrow, so may not be able to get to everyone’s place in one day. We shall see….

Jobs we’re glad we don’t have, #1,368…

She’s B-a-a-a-c-k!

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Zowie! I’m in!!

WordPress has been blocking me from signing into the Funny About Money website. Just did something — dunno what — that suddenly let me into the site.

Since I may not be able to get back, here’s an update, of sorts…

Things keep getting ridiculouser and ridiculouser. 

For myself: I’m slowly sinking into the Family Disease, which happens to be diabetes. Things go from bad to worse there: the Mayo Clinic has called the state and taken away my driving privileges, meaning I can’t even so much as drive to the grocery store.

Seriously: to buy food at the local market, I have to hike blocks through 100-degree heat! So much for “do no harm,”right?

Wouldn’t Hippocrates love it…

Meanwhile, my son has also fallen ill. Deeply worried about him…but what I can do about it, especially in my present condition, I can’t imagine.

And mean-meanwhile, it looks like there’s a good chance I may soon be dragged to an old-folk’s holding pen, very much against my will. Did you know they can force you into an old-folkerie? Even if you’re willing to hire someone to come to your home and care for you, apparently.

I need a lawyer. Mine dropped dead in his office.

No kidding. Apparently he was just standing there when he had a stroke and literally fell on the floor dead.

So now I have no one to help me through the biggest set of fiascos I’ve ever been through in my life. 

No one answers the phone at his office. Apparently where he had established himself was not a partnership but a sole proprietorship. It appears he was just renting space from the other lawyers in that office. So I can’t reach anyone to at least, for godsake, send me my file!

And I have NO IDEA how to deal with that.

He had written a will which, I hope, will protect my son and pass my property along to him. But…where IS that paperwork? 

My understanding is that wills and whatnot are filed with the County. But did he do that before he fell over dead? Don’t know, and don’t know how to find out.

When life turns into a fukkin’ nightmare, eh? 😮

As I scribble, it’s the wee hours of a Sunday morning. So I’ll have to wait until Monday to even try to get something done. Oh well: that gives a day in which to figure out how to try to get something done.

And mean-fukkin-while, GET THIS:

Some idiot called the state of Arizona and reported that I am being abused. 

No kidding!

The other day two social workers showed up at my front door, saying someone had called the state and told them I was being abused.

HUH?

By a pure miracle, Wonder-Cleaning Lady had been here that day, and so the house was spotlessly clean. I was neatly dressed and combed. So we sat in my clean and neat living room while we had a clean and neat conversation. They went on their way, apparently satisfied that I’m not being beaten and starved.

But of course, that means someone, somewhere is watching.

Yep: Big Brother is watching you…and me!

What kind trouble-maker would call up the state and sic a pair of social workers on me? That just escapes me. But it’s a big worry: will this also create problems for my son?

I simply have no idea. No experience with this kind of thing. And no imagination to picture whatever this trouble-maker might dream up next.

Meanwhile, one thing this unending fiasco has shown is that it was majorly a mistake to establish my medical care at the Mayo Clinic. Not because anything is wrong with the Mayo. But because the Mayo is almost an hour’s drive on the other side of the Valley!!!

They have a hospital that’s a little closer — about half that distance — but it also is a LONG way from my house. I have been enjoined from driving, which means it’s damn near impossible for me to get to a doctor — not without enormous inconvenience and hassle for my son!

{sigh} I guess what this shows is one basic principle: NEVER ESTABLISH YOUR MEDICAL CARE THROUGH A GIANT BUREAUCRACY. 

Seriously: I deeply regret having set health-care things up through the Mayo. Just getting an appointment is a hassle. When you try, you get sent to the far side of Scottsdale…quite a trick to get there, when their quack has nullified your driver’s license.

So it goes…from one fiasco to the next fiasco.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, eh?

Shades of Araby…

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It’s not really that the exterior temperature is so hot. It’s the humidity. Under high overcast come 11:44 a.m., it’s 105 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Yes: that IS one hundred and five degrees. 

{gasp!} Wunderground claims it’s 106 degrees (BFD!) with a 15% chance of rain in the next six hours. Peering out the back door, we see a high, thin layer of overcast, and a back-porch thermometer reading of 105 degrees. Indoors, the AC cools it down to 81 degrees. Which is some 20 degrees better…I guess…but not a helluva lot more comfortable, because it does little to suck the humidity out of the indoor air.

This feels like it did we lived in Arabia: where the weather was chronically hot and soggy. I was a little kid at the time, and so didn’t know any better. But my parents…well, they weren’t averse to complaining about it!  😀

My mother grew up in upstate New York — was sent to California when her paternal grandmother (who was raising her) died of diabetes. No: there was no such thing as insulin in those days…if there had been, you can be sure her folks couldn’t afford it.

My mother never got the Family Disease. I’m told I have “pre-diabetes,” whatever that is. And another family member supposedly has a full-on case of it. Is it not odd that such a dangerous, potentially fatal disease would be heritable? Surely, that would seem to keep the population boom down..

A dear friend also has this fine ailment. She seems to be coping with it well…but that being her business, one never knows.

WhatEVER. Just now I’m wishing I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area, whence my mother’s family emanated. And where, IMHO, I believe I belong. A hundred and five in the shade does not feel livable to me! 😀

 

 

Hotter Than the Hubs…Crabbier Than a Dungeness Crab

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Man! It is passing cozy out there! Four in the afternoon and 110 in the shade of the back porch…augh!!!

A modest bank of clouds lurks to the north…this would add humidity to the mix. How much, I wonder?

Humidity: 16%
Chance of rain: 24%

Yech!  And we live here…why?

Totally not in the mood to fix dinner, but…well… Figure I’d better get out to that ‘cue, because — don’tcha just know it? — if I wait until a decent hour, those towering white cloud things in the sky to the north of us will invite themselves to home and dump all over us.

But…do I care? 
Nya nya nya! No, I don’t!

I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Ain’t about to go anywhere. Rain makes me no nevver-mind. Same for the heat.

Seriously: my son’s machinations of a few weeks ago resulted in his stashing the car elsewhere. 

My reaction to that was hah! BFD! I’ll just rent a car!!!! 

*****

But it was, shall we say, an enfeebled reaction. Because…I don’t need to rent a car. By dayum, I don’t need a car at all. 

😮

A guy who drives for Uber lives right across the street. Several others live here in the’ Hood. So if I want to go anywhere that’s outside of walking distance, all I have to do is call one of those folks.

But DO I wanna go anywhere outside of walking distance? Truth to tell: not often. We have three  major supermarkets within steps of the Funny Farm. A veterinarian. A storefront “emergency”clinic.

Hmmmm…. WHY spend a lot of money on a car, on insurance, on licensing, on whatnot…when you really don’t NEED one? When you can rent a car if you just must have one right this minute?

What an insight!

Seriously: it never entered my mind, before this, that I could get by here without a car. That a car is a superfluous, pointless expense… But y’know what?

At least where I’m living, it’s true: a car is a superfluous, pointless expense. 

So here’s my plan, to the extent that a plan is applicable:

* Trot on down to the DMV and be sure, in person, that my present driver’s license will cover me in a rental or borrowed vehicle.

* Trot on up (about three or four blocks) to the rental place and ask how much it would cost to rent a chariot, and for how long.

* Talk to my financial guy about the advisability of selling the Dog Chariot, and ask how to go about that most efficiently and safely.

* Move forward with that, as advised.

* Make friends with staff at the car rental place. Be sure my insurance will cover a rented vehicle.

* Discuss the plan with my neighbor, the Uber driver. Find out how to get an Uber (or other rental) on short notice, if needed, and what else I need to know about renting cars.

* Figure out what to do with the garage. One idea is to turn it into a studio for wanna-be artist friends. Get an art teacher to meet with a group, and use the space for art tables and supplies.

* And finally, if dispensing with the car altogether actually works, sell the damn thing — or give it to my son, if he wants it.

Probably this scheme is not going to save vast amounts of money. My car is paid for, and it doesn’t cost much to maintain and insure. But…who knows? Maybe the idea will save something. And it’s…well, it’s sooo very 21st-century, eh? 😀

If I need to get from Point A to Point B: ride a bus or the railway, or mooch a ride from my son.

If I need a car to take me to an appointment — distance here to distance there, on time — hire an Uber.

If the dog needs to be schlepped to a vet: impose on my son or a neighbor to help haul her there.

**********

LOL!

And probably this scheme is not going to prod my memory to post a post when I finish writing the post!  😀  😀  😀

/////

So here ’tis, a day late and many a dollar short.  Summarizing its message (such as it is…):

My son’s purloining my car (out of concern my safety) has opened the door to a number of big-city possibilities. Among them: the fact that my neighborhood is over-run with Uber drivers. One of these worthies lives right across the street! 

That’s in addition to the very busy train and bus traffic running up and down Main Drag West.

When my mother and I lived in San Francisco — lo! these many years ago — we did own a nice car. We thought of it as my father’s, though of course she drove it more than he did…because he went to sea. He was a Merchant Marine officer, and traveled far more on the ocean than he ever did on land.

He loved his spiffy Chrysler, though. And so my mother inclined to avoid driving it, in order to keep it safe from the City’s rambunctious traffic. She’d take it out and drive to a grocery store maybe once a month, but otherwise we walked or took the public transportation.

Welp…y’know what? A what that hadn’t dawned on me until the present altercation with Mijito? I don’t need a car here any more than she did when we were in San Francisco! 

Whaaa???????

It’s true! Living in my neighborhood, I really don’t need a car. Especially with an Uber driver living across the street and willing to schlep me to destinations like the dentist’s office or the Mayo Clinic.

No kidding. Everything else is within easy strolling distance. Right off the top of my head, for example, I can list a mob of routine destinations…ones that I can walk to without having to pay a dime.

  • 3 large supermarkets
  • A Trader Joe’s
  • A Walgreen’s
  • A delightful Mexican supermarket
  • A large bookstore
  • A computer store with a repair service
  •  My son’s house (a bit out of the way, but not an unreasonable walk)
  • A stop for a bus that goes straight down to the church
  • The same bus proceeds on down the road to the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Gourmet Grocery Store
  • A storefront doctor’s office
  • And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a veterinary office within walking distance.

See what I mean? In the time I’ve spent loafing in my car (a matter of years, it’s true…), Phoenix has morphed from a large small town into a real city.

Soooo…. Why not make use of the amenities of a real city?