So it was OUT THE DOOR as the sun bobbed above the eastern horizon. Gorgeous morning! Cool, clear, and bright.
We were, as usual, not alone. The locals love to do their morning exercise and/or dog walk as dawn cracks. Most of them probably have to go to work — poor souls — and so are getting up & attem in time to trot the dog around the park and then fix breakfast.
Mercifully, this is no longer an issue for Ruby and her human.
In no hurry, we stroll hither and thither, ogle the landscaping, dodge the local coyote, admire the neighbors’ BMWs, enjoy their kids running around.
Past the horse pasture that has been repurposed as a home for a local’s pet llamas. Cute critters…and surprisingly tame.
No coyotes in evidence this morning. They’re around — of that you can be sure. But today we didn’t have to change course to avoid an encounter.
So we wandered through Upper Richistan, the truly upscale section of our overall fairly upscale neighborhood. Pretty, broad irrigated yards, full of green stuff called “grass.” (We don’t have it over here in the low-rent district…not much of it, anyhow.)
Past our elderly friend Marge’s place. She’s recently gone: whether she died or not, I do not know. Since she was a Neighborhood Fixture, I’m sure the grapevine would have announced it if she passed on. I believe she was locked up in a prison for the elderly called The Beatitudes…a garden spot I hope to evade, dead or alive.
The Beatitudes is an old-folkerie designed to turn handsome profits from locking up, supervising, and feeding the elderly. In short: it’s an old people’s prison.
Her son lives in some other state. She daydreamed that she would keep her house for him, so he’d have his very own jumping-off place for the times he’s in town on business.
Just now, they’ve got workmen in the house eviscerating it and rebuilding stuff and painting. I expect he probably intends to sell the place…for a very nice profit, indeed.
I do miss Marge: what a nice lady! We would often run across each other as we perambulated the neighborhood streets, and then walk and talk and gossip together for an hour or so.
If I were friendlier and chattier, surely I’d be the New Marge. Unfortunately, I’m nothing like as gregarious as she was: don’t make friends easily and don’t seek out walking partners.
My plan is to do as she has done: stay in my house until simply FORCED out by age and worried offspring. With any luck, I’ll croak over before I’m made to move into the hideous Beatitudes.
And lemme tellya: I do hope never to wrap another cabinetful of dishes, pots, & pans and haul them off in another cardboard box, drag them into the next kitchen and dining room, unpack them all, wash them all, and find new places to store every darned one of ’em!!
My parents were highly peripatetic — between the time I was born and the time we came back to the States from Saudi Arabia, we lived in four company houses. That’s a move about every 2½ years. Back in the States, we lived in five different places between the time we set down in San Francisco and the time my parents retired to Sun City.
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Eeek! Speaking of the Bizarre Charms of Living in the Funny Farm…
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OMG! The corgi and the human amble into the backyard, the better for said dawg to defile the desert landscaping out there. And what do we spot overhead, circling with evident interest? The biggest damn hawk I’ve seen in years!
Actually, I’m not sure it was a hawk. Could have been an eagle. But it was solid black. The local eagle set: not black.
Could’ve been a raven…but really, it was much too big to operate as a raven or a crow.
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Gosh, but a li’l sighting like that elicits a surge of sentimentalia in the human. Oh, my. How I miss the ranch.
Yea verily: out there on the lip of the Mogollon Rim, a zillion miles from anything like civilization, yes, we did have eagles.
And ravens.
And crows.
And coyotes.
And the occasional nuisance human.
LOL! Hereabouts, all we have are nuisance humans.
Sorry: I don’t consider a misplaced coyote to be much of a nuisance. Understand how coyotes think and train yourself to stare them down, and they don’t present anything like a threat. What they want most is to get a nice long distance from you — preferably with a fistful of fresh garbage between their jaws.
😀
Lord, how I waaaannna go home!
