Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

The Evolution of Life in (un)Lovely Arizona…

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Ugh!!!  7:50 ayem. We’re  back from the Dawg Walk. Ruby is perky. The Human is wilted.

I…   Hate… Arizona! Just now it’s a chilly 94 in the shade of the back porch. Still cool out there: we’re supposed to reach 116 today. Present humidity: 19%.

Think of that. almost 1/5 of what you breathe in just now is…water! 

“It’s a dry heat.” If you think that’s dry, you must love steam irons….

Heh! Comparatively speaking, though, it is a sort of “dry heat.” I can remember in Arabia — oh, you wanna talk about Hell-holes!! — when rain would fall out of a clear blue sky.

Things could be worse, though. Be glad you’re not a Yard Dude. As we scribble, one poor wretch is trimming the shrubbery at the house across the street. Jayzus! What a way to make a living!

Daydreaming of the Bay Area, whilst stumbling around the park with the dog. Ohhhh how I do miss Berkeley, and my relatives’ beautiful little bungalow halfway up the hill to the train tunnel. Such a beautiful place. And never, ever 110 in the shade.

LOL! If I had any way to make a living there, I’d shoot up to the Bay Area in a trice. But realistically speaking: not a chance! Couldn’t even begin to afford to live anywhere near San Francisco today.

Heh! My father once remarked (angrily!) that my mother’s entire salary from her full-time job at Parkmerced would not have paid the rent on our apartment.

Well. That was a function of women’s work, not of the company in question.

whatEVER…  Today is hot and humid: no credible sign that it’s gonna get any better.

Meanwhile, sorta in that department, just today I learned that the Albertson’s supermarket down on the corner of Conduit of Blight and Main Drag South DELIVERS GROCERIES! 

Hot Dang!!!

That is amazingly good news. On two fronts:

* Transportation Front: My honored son has kiped my car! Don’t ask…these li’l family quarrels exceed the category of “too annoying to report.”

You realize: if the stores here deliver groceries, that eliminates a major reason to have to drive around in a car. And boyoboy! Freedom’s just another word…

With an Uber guy living across the street (and several similar worthies in the neighborhood), I can get reasonably priced transport to doctor’s offices, dentist’s offices, friends’ homes, and whatnot just about any time. Combine that with the grocery store delivery, and y’know what?

I DON’T NEED A CAR ANYMORE!!!!!

Seriously: There’s no reason to fill up a garage with a hulking hunk of metal and grease. For the rare occasions when I might need a car in my possession to schlep across the county, I can simply walk up to the corner of Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North and rent a car.

If that’s correct, then…seriously: I don’t need to own a car. Ever again!

* Bringing us to the Cash Front: Think of the phenomenal savings in taxes, insurance, maintenance! Holeeee maquerel!!!

Right now the Dog Chariot is stashed at my son’s house, and frankly…I’m thinking I’m gonna leave it there. He can have it. And all the bills that come with it.

Seriously… Has it ever occurred to you that a car is a hole in the ground into which to pour money?

When we lived in San Francisco, my mother and I hardly ever drove a car. We owned one — not to own a Ford would have been an affront to my father’s masculinity. But since he went to sea on tankers, he was hardly ever home to drive it. My mother stashed the thing in one of Parkmerced’s underground garages, and she and I made our way around town on foot, in buses, and by streetcar.

Now that Phoenix is finally turning into an actual city — with amenities like public transport and wahoo! Uber cabs — I hardly need a car. I could easily sell my car and, on the rare occasions when I do need one, walk up to the corner and rent a chariot for a day or three.

Imagine! No maintenance bills. No insurance covering days and weeks when the thing never leaves the garage. No siren songs luring thieves and vandals… HEY! 

Is there something we’ve been missing here, lo! these many years?

Soooo…. I’m thinking I may just leave the tank at M’hijito’s house. If he wants the thing, he can have it. If he doesn’t, we’ll sell it. It’s probably worth about 10 grand. Heeee! Think of how ten thousand dollah could fancy up that garage space! 😀

Report from the Department of Weird Experiences

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Good grief! If it hadn’t been so funny — so goofy — I’d be hiding under the bed right now.

Did you know there are people in this world who cannot imagine why anyone would want to buy a chilled bottle of white wine? Some of those folks reside behind the customer service desk in a certain beloved nearby liquor store.

No kidding!  Hey!  What’s wrong with this fine room-temperature swiggle of white???

This has been one of those days when your fellow citizens are SO goony, SO ignorant, SO far out in left field that you simply have no clue how to respond.

Seriously: Every which way I’ve turned, lurking there has been another wacksh!t experience, another goofball customer “service” clerk, another inexplicable weirdness…to the point where it all comes out kinda hilarious.

But y’know…you hafta love them all! Think how boring this world would be without them! 😀

This morning I hit my favorite local strip mall, right up at the corner of Conduit of Blight and 19th Avenue.

And yeah: you DO have to love Latino culture to love that mall.

Yeah, you DO have to be White Trash yourself to appreciate how cool, how fun, how slippery, how smart the merchants up there are. Yea verily, you need to be such WT that you wish your Daddy were here to blaze the trail through that place for you. Ohhhhh dayum, do you wish your Daddy were here!! And would you love to hear the (hilarious) opinions he would’ve formed, after a day among the locals.

I’d love to be able to say I’d be as entertained as Daddy would’ve been by today’s antics of the locals. But you know…when he was alive I couldn’t read his mind. Now that he’s deader than a doornail, I have no idea whe he would’ve thought.

Well. I have an idea. But I sure as hell could have not been able to guarantee he would’ve thought that.

But ohhhhh… Yeah. He would’ve been…

amused
pissed
wilied up
out of patience
and telling his daughter to get the f*** outta there.

😀

But when you’re my daddy’s daughter, watching a$$holes dig themselves into a$$hole ditches is…well…damn funny.

 

Hotter Than a By-God

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Crimmineee. It’s only 2:00 in the afternoon, and the temp in the shade of the back porch is 104. 

Welp…I had things I needed to do. But I ain’t goin’ out in that!  Especially not without a car.

Should’ve gotten off my duff at 7 or 8 this morning, when the local shops opened. If they opened then. Some of them stay closed until a more traditional 10:00 a.m.

What a place! Why do I stay here????

Well, the main reason I stay in Arizona is that the kid is here.

Secondarily, I dunno where else I’d go.

Locally: Arizona just ain’t that glamorous a venue. There really isn’t anyplace else much better to live around here. Outside of AZ… back to California, maybe?  Helle’s Belles! I sure can’t afford to live in the East Bay, whence my family emanated. Hate Southern California and would rather put up with Arizona’s 100-degree-plus temps than go back there.

Ya can’t win for losin’, eh?

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the possibility of moving into an old-folkerie called the Beatitudes. Very nice place. Brain-banging expensive: basically, you fork over everything you have in exchange for their promise to care for you through your last years.

It’s just down the road, though, so it’s no further from M’hijito’s place than the Funny Farm is.

But…ugh! I’ve never been into communal living. And I don’t figure I’d get used to it now. Sure don’t wanna try. 😀

Seriously: I really dislike an institutional environment!

As places to live go, Arizona is overall kinda ugly. Unless you want to live in the Grand Canyon, I guess. Mostly it’s dusty, dreary desert or shaggy, under-watered forest land. Or Southern California style urbs and suburbs.

So…no reason to move out of the city, which at least sports a few decent grocery stores.

Where WOULD I ‘druther be?

Well, the San Francisco Bay Area, I reckon. 

My mother’s relatives emanated from the East Bay: Berkeley and waypoints. I did love those parts, for sure. But no way in Hell could I afford to live there these days. Or any days…

Trying to imagine what it would be like to live with Ruby in the hotel-like environment of the Beatitudes. Heh! I can tellya: that dawg would have a rabid sh!tfit every time anyone walked past in the hallway. Holyeee mackerel, would she go batsh!t in that place.

So would I. Truly, I do loathe, hate, and despise communal living.

Jeez. What a depressing day: what depressing prospects.

Ruby and I could stay here in the Funny Farm until I get to the point where I truly can’t manage it anymore. (That won’t be much longer, to tellya the truth…)

Or we could move to the Beatitudes, a secure but deeply depressing old-folkerie.

We could move into the old-folkerie where my father chose to live after my mother died, a single-story spread called Orangewood. Worst food you’ve ever had in your life…and you’re required to eat in their dining hall, so they can check you off their rolls and be sure you haven’t croaked over during your hours in your dreary little apartment.

Or…

I could sneak out and Ruby and I could run off to the backcountry of northern Arizona, maybe head up into Utah. Wonder how long we’d get away with that?

Ugh. None of these are attractive options. The least dreary, I think, is to stay right here.

And good luck with that…

SDXB moved to Sun City, where he has taken up happily enough with New Girlfriend. It’s not a bad option for an elder, especially one with stuffy tastes. My parents liked it there. I never cared for it…but then, I wasn’t an old bat at the time.

Honestly…I can’t think of anyplace much more depressing to live than a ghetto for old folks. WhatEVER, though.

Ohhhhh Freakin’ MG!!!!!

Just stumbled in from the mailbox, where I found an obese envelope full of old reports from the Mayo Clinic. Mygawd, there’s over 500 pages of this stuff!!!!! 

Why in the name of hevvin did they send this crap to me??  And what on earth do they think I’m gonna do with it?

Jayzuz. Just what I needed to cheer up my afternoon.

Backcountry. Northern Arizona. Utah boondocks. Lookin’ better and better!

Roar! Roar!! Roar!!!

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Ruby and I take our morning stroll, serenaded by the roar of jet planes. Yea, verily: one of the reasons I hated living in Sun City: Luke AFB, just a few miles to the south and west.

Every goddamn morning: Blasts of jet engines greeted the rising sun.

Other reasons to find Sun City tedious:

* racism
* hatred of young people
* distance from decent shopping
* isolation
* ugly, cheaply built house
* ultra-tidiness
* gravel “lawns”
* no pets: nobody had dogs, though they were allowed.

We did: we had an annoying chihuahua…but my mother preferred cats. And you hafta say: cats don’t yap.

Way over here in North Central Phoenix, a good 20 miles away from Sun City and Luke, we can get the dawn jet blasts. Even though the planes don’t fly directly over the neighborhood, their engines are SO LOUD that you can hear the damn things INSIDE your amply insulated, solid block house with its double-paned windows and its attic blown full of insulation.

What a racket!

SDXB, a long-time newsman and then a PR guy, took a little job for Luke after he moved out to SC: answering the phone to citizens calling to bitch about the jet engine noise. It was a task that kept him busy.

My mother was one who did not bellyache about the racket. “It’s the sound of fweedom,” she used to simper.

No, Mom: it’s the sound of World War III, comin’ our way. 

Of course I didn’t say that to her. She’d have backhanded me into the middle of next week for any such sass.

She did love living in Sun City, you hafta say that. So much so that she not only wasn’t bothered by the ungodly roar from Luke, she even claimed to like it.

Ugh. Never been so glad to move away from a place in my life.

And after 10 years in Saudi Arabia…that’s sayin’ something!

Strange Weather…

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Looks like rain, but doesn’t feel like rain…know what I mean?  It’s a very weird-looking day out there this morning: high overcast. Is it gonna rain? I’d put 50-50 odds on the proposition. Right now, tho’, I doubt that it’ll rain soon.

So…I should get off my duff and walk down to the Sprouts or over to the Albertson’s. Or to some such. Just now, though, I’m a bit too lazy to work up that much ambition. Ruby and I have traipsed all over the neighborhood and the local park — probably a couple of miles. And despite the high clouds, it’s starting to warm up. Do I really want to trade a heat stroke for a handful of chocolate chips?

😀

Well. Possibly. Quite possibly.

My kid has made off with my car (note how tactfully I refrain from saying “stolen”…), and so shopping is restricted to stores within walking distance. Well, unless I want to brave the public transport system.

Believe me: I do not. Been there, done that, ain’t doin’ it again.

Truth to tell, Phoenix has grown into a Big City. And in such a venue, you can usually get most of what you need or want within a reasonable walk from your home. What that means, amazingly enough, is you really don’t need a car. And if you do? The place is swarming with taxicabs, Ubers, and busses. From here I can easily walk to…

* Albertson’s
* Sprouts
* Walgreen’s
* Bookman’s
* Walmart
* a computer store
* several restaurants

Plus a local shoe store, liquor store, coffee store…and on and on.

If I wanted to wait on a bus until after the cows come home, I could even get to the beloved AJ’s car-free. A guy who drives for Uber lives right across the street. He’d probably drive me down to the pricey AJ’s; from there I could get back home by bus and on foot.

The main problem with getting around on foot is that it takes A LOT longer than driving. In a vast, spread-out urb like Phoenix, there is a limit to how much time you want to kill traipsing from Point A to Point B. Same is true with the public transit system here: conveyances don’t come by very often. You can easily stand around a half-hour or forty-five minutes waiting for a bus. And it’s decidedly not safe for a woman to be standing on the street by herself here.

LOL! It ain’t San Francisco, that’s for sure!

When my parents and I lived there during the 1950s, a bus came by our high-rise apartment every 15 minutes or so. I could hop on the bus and ride to a stop within a block of my school. Down the street from the school, you’d find coffee shops, an ice-cream parlor, several decent restaurants, and a variety of nifty stores.

Here in lovely uptown Phoenix, you’ll wait as much as 45 minutes for a bus — any bus — to show up. If you’re female, you’re likely to be harassed as you stand there (and stand…and stand…and stand) on the corner. It decidedly does not feel safe. And that is why I would be willing to pay an Uber driver a fistful of dollars to take me wherever I need to go.

Then, too: it’s about to get VERY hot here. If I left the house right now — 9 a.m. — I could probably get to a nearby supermarket and/or drugstore and then reach home before the heat becomes absurd. It’s overcast today, and so the weather is only supposed to reach 99 degrees. Tomorrow, though, it’ll be 104.

And no, even an old desert rat like me ain’t about to walk across block on block on block of concrete and asphalt through 104-degree heat.

My son is willing to take me to doctor’s and dentist’s appointments…but that presents a monster time suck for him. Paying an Uber driver looks a lot more attractive than having the kid take off from his job every time he turns around. On the other hand…hmmm…he’s the one who ripped off my car.

Maybe he should be paying the Uber guy’s fees. 😀

If only she were still here…

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I wish…i wish…i do wish she were here to see it.

The’Hood, I mean. My beautiful ‘Hood. “She”: my mother, gone these past three decades.

She had seen this tract before SDXB and I moved in here. And she thought it was OK.

Today — oh yeah: I can assure you — she’d think it’s a lot more than OK. This place is right up her alley — the alley we traversed  over 30 years ago, when i was a kid and she was coming to the end of her life.

***

Ian the Great: what a hoot she would have gotten out of him, her fine grandson!

And how proud of him she would have been. She would have thought he was about the best thing that ever trundled up the pike.

If she hadn’t been murdered by the tobacco peddlers, she might still be with us…though she would be older than Methuselah and all his sisters by now.

Women in her family who didn’t drink and didn’t smoke — because they were wacksh!t Christian Scientists — lived well into their 90s with no serious ailments. And no medical care. So…that would have taken her past the year 2000, give or take. Gosh! It’s hard to believe that much time has passed.

LOL! It’s a little hard to believe, too, that I’m still kickin’after all those years and all those relatives have passed. 😀

***

Heh! In its way, it explains why I’m so sick. Who knew I’d be kicking around this earth after 80 years!

Sure doesn’t feel like that long. On the other hand, we live in a culture that despises the elderly, and so we try to put our longevity out of mind. That makes sense.

Though yes, I do feel like it’s time to go (and then some), knowing that my great-grandmother and my great-aunt each still had another 10 years to go at this point in their lives makes me feel…well…strange. On the one hand, sorta encouraged that there may be another full decade left. On the other hand, sorta miserable at the prospect of ten more years to spend feeling this awful.

If there’s a God, I kinda wish She’d set me free, along about now…