Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

Another Balmy Day in Arizona…

by

“…Leave us all enjoy it,” as one beloved radio announcer (now extinct) used to croon.

Yeah. It’s 5:25 in the afternoon and A HUNDRED AND NINE DEGREES in the balmy shade of the back porch.

To gild that thermometer, a layer of overcast is drifting in from the east. So…it’s hotter than the hubs out there — and humid. 

Lovely. Feels like Saudi Arabia.

Anyhow…if there was ever a chance that Ruby and I could do an evening walk after the sun goes down, it’s rapidly melting away!

😀

What DO you suppose got into my parents, to drag us here to this balmy spot? Wouldn’t you think 10 years of 110-degree heat and sand by the Persian Gulf would have warmed the cockles of their souls enough?

ohhhhh well….  At least we don’t get hurricanes. Horrors!

Think I was supposed to go to the dentist this afternoon. That would have been impossible, as M’jihito still has my car. Just as well…I’m past my heat-and-hassle limit!!!

***

Ruby goes outside. Where is she? 

Call the dog.

No sign of her.

But also no sign that any of the PARCHED, FRICASEED TREES AND PLANTS in the backyard have been watered.

Call the dog.

Tear around trying to get the watering system to come on. Drag a hose to one especially fried tree.

Call the dog.

Set the water to running on the backyard orange trees.

Call the dog.

Bat my way back into the house.

Call the dog.

Finally find her: loafing in the bedroom.

Hot, hot, hot, hot, HOTTER THAN HOT. Air-conditioner is set to 79 degrees, and it’s pounding away.

Phone jangles. 

Leap up, run to the office, grab handset.

It’s M’hijito, calling to check that I’m OK in this unholy heat, and asking if I’d like him to take me to the grocery store.

<3

Hafta ask you: how nice is that??? <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Nothing needed here this evening. But tomorrow I may ask him to schlep me to the Sprouts or some such. No hurry, thank goodness!!

Arizona:
Garden spot

Lovely Morning in Uptown Phoenix…again

by

<snark!>  Wunderground tells us our humidity is a mere 22%. Shoot! You can’t even swim in that!

Hot. Wet. Gray. Boring.

Waiting for my son to pick me up and take me to see a new-to-me doc, one whose practice is way to Hell and Gone out near Sun City.

Stupidly, eagerly…I picked this guy off the Internet because he has good reviews and he’s NOT way to Hell and Gone halfway to Payson.

The august Mayo Clinic is just that: on the road to Payson, a good hour’s drive from the Funny Farm.

Afraid the guy’s office is just about that far in the other direction, so this is gonna be a futile trip.

…

I sit here un-enjoying this balmy day and think…how miserable my mother must have been, living by the sea in Saudi Arabia. It was like this about 80% of the time: hot and humid. 

It’s also not surprising that my mother, a girl from Upstate New York, would not survive 10 years on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The accursed place was hot and humid: most of the time just like today’s gray and sticky weather in this place and in this time.

Yeah. Ten years in Saudi Arabia killed her. Shortly before we were to come home for good, an idiot neighbor invited us over for a farewell dinner.

Understand: the company trained employees to sanitize all the produce they ate. Fresh vegetables were to be soaked in Clorox before you washed and ate them.

But there, as here, morons held forth: the type who imagines that if an authority says something, it must be manipulative and false.

So this stupid woman, our neighbor and the wife of a guy who worked on the docks with my father, had us over. I — then an 11-year-old — was dorking around in the kitchen with her and her son while she was preparing the meal. Several times, she sliced off a piece of cabbage and handed it to me as a snack…without sanitizing it. 

I must have been strong as a little horse, because I never got sick from it. But…my mother sure as hell did.

She almost died. She spent weeks in the company hospital as they dosed her with whatever poisons they had to try to beat back amoebic dysentery. More weeks in bed after we got back to the States. And really: she never was right again. She died of a gastric cancer shortly after my father retired and betook them to Sun City.

Ugh.

Anyway. Doctors are not my favorite people. No fault of their own, you understand: I just don’t like being reminded, vividly, of the gawdawful occasions when we needed to make use of their skills.

***

hmmmm…. 10:30 and my son’s not here. Could he have forgotten?

awwww…what a shame!

Do I have the wrong day?

* * * * * *

oh!!!! Yaaayyyyy!  YES , I DO!!!!!!

Today is Tuesday. Our appointment with New Quack isn’t until tomorrow: Wednesday!!!!

Joy joy joy!  Dance to spring! 

Well. Dance to mid-summer, anyhow.

*** *** ***

So! NOW what?????

What I’d like now is a fresh bottle of wine. We’re about out of booze here at the Funny Farm. But on the other hand…if M’hijito spots any such prize, he will have a sh!t-f!t that won’t quit. He imagines he’s heaving me onto the wagon.

{chortle!}

At any rate, to replenish the supply, I’d have to march through the humidity to the Sprouts…or down to the Albertson’s. And you wanna know what I DON’T want to do?

Yeah…tromp around Phoenix on a humid, hot day.

All the stores around here have announced that they’re taking to delivering groceries to your house. Nice, eh?

Except…I haven’t set that up with any of our fine emporia yet. To do so would require me to walk over to Main Drag West and up to Main Drag North, visit three or four stores, and dork around with making them understand where to bring the loot.

And good luck with that, eh?…

Seriously, I am enthusiastic about trying this new service…and, I sincerely hope, using it regularly. I do hate grocery shopping, that’s for sure.

But first off, I’m too lazy to get my butt over to the stores and dork with this stuff.

And second off (third off, fourth off, fifth off, and so on…), most Americans haven’t a clue about the nature and uses of fresh produce. Which is to say, they couldn’t pick out a decent head of lettuce if their life depended on it.

So, I expect that once I do get this system up and running here, the results will be less than sylvan.

Hmmmm…. Another frenzy of sirens echoing across the lands. Must be another wrecky-poo down on Main Drag South…no, sounds like the ambulance is on its way northward on M.D. West.

Ambulance driver. Now there’s a job I don’t envy anyone. What a hair-raising experience that must be…day after day after day…

Huffa puffa…WOW

by

Hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there. It’s only 11:15 in the morning, but the thermometer on the back porch reads 100 degrees. Objectively speaking, that ain’t very hot…for Arizona, we mean. But it’s a little humid out. So the heat…or whatever it is…strikes one as a shade (heh!) on the uncomfortable side.

But FUN!!!! I do love walking around the ‘Hood, which is…well, just one great hangout. No question of it.

On the way home from the U.S. Postal Services official mailbox — whither I’d gone to drop a can’t-wait-on-it piece of mail — I passed a couple attending to their BRAND-NEW, GORGEOUS, HUGE, FIRE-ENGINE RED MINIVAN. Parked in their driveway…to die for.

Seriously, I think the only reason they weren’t in the cooler reaches of Payson or Flagstaff or parked beside a Pacific Coast beach is that they had just bought the thing.

When I stopped to admire it, the woman owner who was tidying the thing up said they’d bought it for their road trips — soon to be a regular feature of retirement — and because it had a nice, safe place for their little dog.

You can be sure that if it were mine, it and I and the dawg would be ON THE ROAD, right this minute. 😀

Many years of grand fun to you, folks! <3

***

No grand fun here, just this minute. Well…unless grand pain is the same as grand fun… 😀

Seriously, the hip seems to be dislocated. At some points, you can almost feel that the femur doesn’t fit quite right into the hip socket. At other, the joint works smoothly and with very little pain.

I was gonna drive out to the far west side to try to snab a new doctor. But my son having snabbed my car put the eefus on that. Not far from here, we can rent cars…but…on reflection…how much DO we want to walk through 100-degree heat on a hip that hurts every time you move it? Hmmmmmm…..

So: called the proposed new quack and canceled that appointment. Not an easy trick: the guy apparently is too cheap to hire a receptionist/phone-answering lady, and I had a bitch of a time reaching a machine that would take a “won’t be there” message. I hope he doesn’t try to charge me for the missed meeting.

‘Cause he ain’t about to get paid for it…

*****

And now Wonder-Cleaning Lady is here, pushing dirt and dog hair around the tiled floors. What a fun way to make your living, eh?

Idle conversation about our predecessors. Hers, of course: largely Native American mixed with Spaniard types. Seemed unclear to her what tribes might have made up the native set…but if her people came from fairly deep in Mexico (as they probably did), you can be sure they weren’t Chocktaws and Chickasaws.

My father, as far as we can tell, was largely Chocktaw. Apparently his mother was a member of the tribe who married a gringo buffalo hunter. We know his family came out of the deep South, though they had landed in Texas by the time he was born.

What was my mother? The surprise gift of a spate of naughty adventuring on the part of her mother and…some guy. Raised by her paternal grandmother and, later, by my maternal great-grandmother, my mother was amazingly staid. One would never know the maternal line of the family was composed largely of March hares who subscribed to a crackpot religion called Christian Science. 😀

A lot of strangeness lurked in that branch of the family…but none of it had to do with being Native American.

Still More Existential Agonizing

by

My poor son is freaking out because — with some reason — he thinks I drink wayyy too much booze.

And y’know…the truth is, even a glass or so a day is prob’ly too much.

My parents always had a cocktail or two before dinner. And as I reached the Drinking Age, I came to join them. Actually, my college boyfriend at the time got me started on swilling a cocktail or two a day. So it was pretty easy to just blend right in with the family custom. 😀

Has that custom grown into an exceptionally bad habit?

Hmmmm…..  One could argue so. 

Yeah, I do have a whiskey & water or a glass of wine every afternoon, before dinner. Then a glass of wine with dinner. And yeah: it makes sense to say that’s too damn much. Especially for the girlie scion of a good Christian Scientist family. 😀

So now, dammit….I’ve decided to climb on the wagon. 

Ugh, what a way spend the late afternoon, right?

😀

But truth to tell, I think we’ll all be better off if the old lady quits lapping her li’l cocktail every afternoon. How booooring!

My parents always had cocktails before (and sometimes with) dinner. The difference was that they didn’t drink wine. So they didn’t have that nightly swill of cabernet or Sauvignon blanc with dinner. Instead, they generally lapped up a whiskey and water or two beforehand. And that was it.

My son, having noticed how much wine I’ve taken to slurping down (doubt if he’s noticed the disappearing whiskey…), has asked me to knock it off. And truth to tell…I think he’s right.

So here we are, riding the wagon again. 

Matter of fact, I hadn’t noticed until recently how much booze I’ve been lapping…and y’know, I do believe he’s right. I need to quit that! 

One of the li’l problems that arise when you get in the habit of regular boozing is that you don’t realize how much you’re spending on your swilling. If you buy a bottle of wine or whiskey only when you go into the store to buy food, that cost gets blended in with the grocery bill, and unless you’re paying close attention, you simply don’t notice that the grocery bill is hovering near the stratosphere.

And in fact, that is pretty much what’s happened here. Recently I realized that holee maquerel! I’m spending an obscene amount on food. 

Well.

No.

Sorry. Cabernet is not food. Neither is Sauvignon blanc. Nope. Not food. But it sure as hell is jacking up the grocery bill.

So. No. Quit it!

As of this evening, we’re guzzling iced tea or water with dinner. Ugh.

Oh well: we’ll survive. And probably be the better for it. 

 

The Night Comes…

by

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

                                                             –Dylan Thomas

One of my favorite poems since I first read it, now “Do Not Go Gentle”  seems to speak directly to the moment. Here at the end of life, one’s impulse indeed is to fight the pending end, to quarrel with it, to sock it back, to dodge out of its way.

All futility, of course. Life begins. Life ends. We can’t evade those fundamental truths.

Is life itself futile? 

I don’t know. If there’s a God, why would that god invent such an elaborate creation, if not for some reason?

Okay, okay: Out of boredom.

Yeah, that makes some sense. It might even make more sense than the theory that God created life to satisfy some goal, to make something happen, because it mattered.

Sometimes it seems as though nothing matters. Other times, as though everything matters.

What to make of that confusion? 

Nothing, I reckon. Who, after all, are we to imagine that God — if there is a God — would have some reason for building creation? Other than boredom, that is.

What we need to contend with, on a logical and on an emotional level, is simply that none of it makes any sense. Not to the mere human mind, anyway.

If it did make sense, we would not ask these questions, would we? We would not imagine or envision a God, would we? Because we would know. If there were a Truth, we would know that truth.

We who are human may imagine we know truth. But objectively speaking: no. We cannot. Because we’re merely human. Existence is so vast, so outrageous that there’s no way for we who are humans to make sense of it.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense, hm?

Joys (and Amazements!) of Cultural Difference

by

Ever notice how differently people from different cultures do things in daily life?

😀

The current amusement, here at the Funny Farm, has to do with toothpaste.

Wonder Cleaning Lady, that gift from Heaven to our house, is totally flummoxed by the Old Bat’s habits in dental cleaning. Ohhhh weirdness…

I like to brush my teeth not with minty icky commercial toothpaste but with baking soda. It’s slightly abrasive, it doesn’t taste disgustingly minty, and it really gets your teeth clean. Accordingly, I keep a pile of it in a little glass bowl on the bathroom counter.

Apparently this is a bit too alien for WCL.

She has taken to throwing out the baking soda in the bathroom counter bowls!

Admittedly, most Americans would find this dental cleaning habit pretty alien, too. So I can’t blame her. But…JEEZ! Lady, at least ask me if it’s OK to throw away the damn stuff!

😀

Today I had to retrieve the whole box of baking soda — entailed a bit of a search of it — and refill my bowl of DIY “toothpaste.” And next week, I’ll have to catch her long enough to explain that I use the stuff every day and wish she please wouldn’t throw it out.

She, in consequence, will be further convinced that I’m crazy. LOL! That won’t take much more convincing! But maybe she’ll knock off the toothpaste disposal habit. Tooth detergent, I guess you could call it…cause it ain’t pastey.

It’s interesting, though, how differently people do things. And that sometimes those aren’t individual differences but collective differences.

Ah, Bartleby. Ah, humanity!