Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

Hotter than…

by

HOLEE doggerel! It literally is hotter than the Hubs of Hades outside. Ruby and I set out, along about 20 or 30 minutes ago, to circumnavigate the dawg’s beloved neighborhood park.

Mistake! We didn’t even get all the way over to the park, it’s soooo hot out there. And humid, we might add: feels like hideous Saudi Arabia out there…sautéeing on the sands of the Persian Gulf. I’m soaked with sweat. The dawg is flopped on the tiles, panting.

Horrible morning!

And…to frost that donut…we’re expecting my son’s nuisance babysitters to show up this morning. Just what I need: a busybody or three sticking their noses into my private life.

Ugh! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

This is the problem with life as a lone wolf: most of the time, what you truly do want is just to be left alone. Altogether fukkin’ ALONE.

Ohhh well…by the time the poor souls show up, maybe I will  have cooled down enough — physically and psychologically — to behave myself. As much as I ever do…  😉

I do need to take a bath or a shower, after that little junket. But…not now.

Ruby looks like she’s fried. She’s still laying on the tiles, panting frantically.

Shouldn’t have taken her out in that heat…but truth to tell, I really did NOT realize it was that hot and muggy out there.

***

Y’know, Arizona does have its charms. But about half the time, I hate it here. And highly resent my parents for having dragged me to this place and dumped me in the University of Arizona (a year before I graduated from a California high school).

I was slated to go to UC Berkeley. And I’ll tellya: the UofA Cal-Berkeley does not make.

Oh well. It allowed me to pocket a Phi Beta Kappa key without expending any effort. That’s…uhm…something. I guess….

hmmmm…

Where would I go if I could get away from here?

Berkeley — whither my California relatives — is…

…expensive
…aging and largely decrepit
…full of termites
…cold much of the time
…built up and down steep hills that leave you panting by the time you walk a block
…awash in crackpot liberals that are even loonier than me…

Ugh. No…don’t wanna go back there.

Hmmmm…waitminit here…looks like I’ve got the wrong day for Babysitter Lady. This is Thursday! She was here yesterday. Proof positive: the furniture has been dusted.

😀

Wow! That’s senility for you: can’t even remember what happened yesterday!

Was that absurd woman here yesterday?

{chortle!}
{Nope}

She was here the day before yesterday.

So, see? It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember what happened yesterday.

😀

Matter of fact, it really doesn’t. Every day is the same.  They all blend together into one timeless pudding.

That issue would resolve if I could go back to singing in the choir. But…without a car, I can’t drive to the church. So…no…I can’t belong to the choir.

Basically, everything that was interesting or fun in my life has come to an end. The life itself is the only thing that hasn’t arrived at that stage. And, I suppose, it’s about time for that to happen. When you have nothing left to do, why hang around doing nothing?

Soggy Doggy Day

by

Echhhh! Seven a.m. on a June Wednesday, here in lovely uptown Phoenix. WHAT A SWAMP out there.

Just back from walking the dog around the ‘Hood. For a change, not too many “ohhhh, they just wannna pwa-a-ay!” morons came our way, so I didn’t have to drag Ruby out of any fights. That was refreshing.

But “refreshing” ain’t the word for today’s weather. Hot and wet: the air so saturated it actually feels soggy against your skin.

So much for “a dry heat,” eh?

Oh well. At least we got our exercise walk. Doesn’t look like any of the expected nuisance visitors have showed up at the door. If they did, they didn’t leave any sign of their (brief) presence.

You know what that means, though…don’t you?

Yeah: it means that the minute I get a fresh pot of coffee poured and sit down to sip a mugful of it, we’ll get BING B-O-O-O-N-G!!! at the front door. Followed by ARF ARF ARF ARF YAP YAP ARF ARF!!!!!!

Shee-ut.

I can’t even remember what today’s nuisances are supposed to pester me with today. Recruiters for one of the old-folkeries, I think. Someone my son sent over, too…on the assumption that my marbles have fallen out my ears and are scattered all over the floor.

These people pass judgment on your mental grip…which means I have to get the house picked up, spick & span, so they don’t conclude that I’m too batshit to take care of myself. Which they will, if they see a mess in this place.

And y’know…I don’t WANT to clean house right this minute, at 7:15 in the morning. I want a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast and time to rest from this morning’s tromp around the park.

Anyway, I figure the minute I get the coffee poured, it’ll be BING-BONG, followed by a gang of wannabe babysitters.

Fortunately, Wonder Cleaning-Lady keeps the house preternaturally clean. So all I have to do is make the bed and keep the litter picked up. That’s a helluva lot better than charging through four bedrooms, two baths, a family room, a living room, and a kitchen to clean up the zoo. First thing in the morning….

Weird new phenomenon: The peripheral neuropathy has faded to the point where it’s almost gone.  Right now, if I weren’t pounding on a keyboard, I wouldn’t feel it at all!!!

What makes that weird?  Well: I was told it cannot and will not go away. It’s permanent: misery to follow you for the rest of your life.

Huh.

Maybe it isn’t true that PN doesn’t go away? The Cleveland Clinic seems to claim that it can resolve…

So…gosh! Wouldn’t THAT be something? I’d resigned myself to a future of nonstop tingling and pain. But…either I’m getting used to it or it’s getting better.

…and Again… Still Hotter than Hades!

by

Quickie circumnavigation of the block, by way of running off some neurotic frustration. Come 2:30 in the afternoon, the pavement out there is WAY too hot for Ruby the Corgi’s little feet. So, to her disgust, she got left home while her human sweltered its way down the road.

HOLEE mackerel, it’s hot out there! Back porch thermometer reads 109 degrees: fully in the shade! 

Ugh!  WHY do I stay in this godawful place?

Well: there’s a question…one that drives the next question: WHERE would I go other than this godawful place?

My son is here, and I have no desire to move away from him. Nor do I have any desire to move TO the alternatives.

  • San Francisco Bay Area: love it, but can’t afford it
  • Southern California: and how is that any better than here?
  • San Diego: don’t know anyone there anymore; don’t wanna start all over
  • Ft. Worth, Texas: All my relatives have moved or croaked over; don’t know anyone left there

On and on…really, there isn’t anyplace where I’d rather live than here.

Actually, Arizona has a lot to recommend it, surprisingly enough.

Phoenix is an actual big city, with big-city amenities.

When I was teaching, Arizona State University (on the other side of the Valley) paid a decent salary and hired me full-time.

This place does have a cultural life, believe it or not: two excellent museums in Phoenix alone, plus a couple of theater troupes and historical museums and three universities — one of them nationally prominent — and a plethora of historic sites, and…on and on. It’s a pretty nice and reasonably interesting place to live, to tell the truth.

And it has slews of decent restaurants — including some that exceed decent. I no longer eat out, but when Dear Husband was in the offing, we raided the local eateries a couple times a week.

****

And now it’s coming on to 6:00 p.m. Cleaning Lady from Heaven is still blasting around, bless her. Outside: 108 degrees, or so we’re told by Wunderground. Could be: it’s hotter than the hubs out there.

Talk about jobs you’d druther not have! Cleaning people’s houses: eek! 

She does an excellent job…well, actually, she’s a Godsend. This place is beyond spotless by the time she goes out the door.

And what that means, in the current short run, is that the next time the government busybodies come over here to inspect my lifestyle, they’ll think I run around cleaning my house every day.

Yes. Somebody sends busybodies to check on me. They come from some office in the State of Arizona. So far they’ve been  no worse than a passing nuisance — largely, I suspect, because of this fine woman’s work. Yes: I do clean my house…but nothing like as magnificently as she does. Last time the State’s spies dropped by, she had just been here…and so they saw…

* no dust anywhere
* freshly vacuumed and mopped tile floors throughout (the shack has no carpets)
* sparkling clean kitchen counters and appliances
* sparkling clean bathrooms
* a freshly made bed
* shiny clean windows

She’s just finishing up right now…and once again the place is as clean and organized as a museum.

I do hope Big Brother’s last inspection actually will be the last. That surprise descent upon my home was truly infuriating! Who they HELL do they think they are, nosing through my house? Out of the blue, without my invitation or permission!

Anyway, if we’ve gotten rid of those busybodies, it will be solely because of CL from H’s excellent work. 

Morning in Lovely(?) Arizona

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The Corgi is out back, sniffing every corner of the yard — her daily task, right? The Human loafs, feet on the hassock, computer on the lap. All is quiet…for the nonce.

Not looking forward to this morning, though. M’Hijito has hired a babysitter to come in and supervise me, forgodsake. Today, as I understand it, is to be her first day on the job.

It’s only a little after seven, and so we presumably have an hour or two before she surfaces.

Once the poor soul is welcomed into the Funny Farm and has a chance to look around, we’ll have to try to get to know each other. And since Funny is in fact One Weird Chick, …heh!!  We’ll see how long she lasts!

😀

Seriously: I am a strange little broad and always have been, since I was a little kid. As a child, I had hardly any friends, because I did not and could not fit in with the crowd.

Over half a century of life on this earth indeed has taught me to keep my mouth shut. But that’s easy enough when the victim…uh…companion isn’t living with you. When you’ve got someone in your face all day long…well…that’s a whole ‘nother story.

So, truth to tell, even though I’m interested to meet this new person, I’m sure not looking forward to it.

By now Ruby and I would have circumambulated the ‘Hood on our morning walk. Instead, we’ve had to sit here and wait for the babysitter to show up. Of course, she has not done so, and because June is one of the hotter months in lovely central Arizona, our chance for a doggy-walk is already lost.

Since it’s unreasonable to ask some poor underpaid soul to surface before 7 in the morning, I’ll have to go over to the locksmith’s shop and have him make another key, to give to this lady. That will allow her to get into the house while Ruby and I are out junketing around the neighborhood.

Just what I wanna do: hand out front-door keys to all and sundry…

Meanwhile, my office looks like a bomb dropped in there. WHAT a mess! Instead of loafing here playing with the computer, I should be back there shoveling out that room.

Ugh! Grand way to start the day, eh?

This is part of what makes my character weird: I don’t like people telling me what to do with my life or what to do with my time. 

Ever has it been thus. So…school was a PITA. Organized sports: PITA. Church activities: PITA.

Huh….  What happened over the years to incline me to dislike other people so?

Hmmmm…

Well: my earliest memory is of the time I was playing in a sandbox with a neighbor’s two brats. I was under three years old, because this happened before we left for Arabia…and we arrived in that sylvan realm a day before I turned three.

We’re sitting there in a sandbox in front of the house my mother had rented in Berkeley, California. The neighbor’s two brats are there, too, playing with me.

I imagine we’re all having a good time, when the brat girl picks up a load of sand in her little kiddie shovel and SLAMS IT INTO MY FACE. 

Slams it into my EYES.

Oh, my god! Never has anything hurt so much, before or since.

And there you are, folks:

That is how I learned to dislike and to distrust other people. That lesson, we might add, has never been forgotten.

And that’s why I don’t want strangers in my home. It’s why I don’t want the babysitter my son has hired in my home. It’s why just now I do not want to sit here waiting for the woman to show up; but instead I crave to be striding around the park behind a bouncing corgi.

Humanity: God’s gift to Satan.

Eine Kleine Paranoia…

by

For reasons unknown, the possibility of a major earthquake in Southern California — powerful enough to affect lovely Arizona — has been lingering in my feeble little mind for the past couple of days.

No: I’m not clairvoyant. 😀  So don’t worry about any magical prediction. Some parties have been gnashing teeth about a possible major quake over here…but that is so unlikely as to be hilarious.

The thing is, though… Structures in California are built to withstand earthquakes. That’s not true in Arizona. Because o’course we don’t have earthquakes. Right?

Upshot: a quake of any noticeable magnitude would do some serious damage here.

MEANWHILE….

It’s 109 degrees in the shade(!!) of the back porch. Vast, towering white cumulus clouds are barreling down on us from the north. Dollars to donuts, it’ll rain like He!! this evening. That’ll cool things down a bit.

But until then: 109 and humid is no joke!

Hideously reminiscent of (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where my parents dragged me to live for nine years on the shore of the Persian Gulf. You ain’t seen heat and humidity till you’ve enjoyed a summer in those parts.

At any rate, Wunderground is forecasting 100% chance of precip, with thunderstorms to rage into the night. Goody… 😮

 

“Another Beautiful Day in Arizona”

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Okay, it’s “only” 96 degrees out there, at 8 o’clock in the morning. So saith Wunderground. Whatever: it’s HOT and it’s MUGGY. Ruby and I just staggered in from an hour’s walk…one of those excursions that leaves you wondering why on earth anyone would ever choose to live in this place.

Well. No snow in the winter. I guess.

But I’ll tellya: we used to live in San Francisco. And I’ll take fog and cold air over air so soggy at 8:00 in the morning that you can barely breathe. If my son weren’t here, I’d have shot out of here the minute my father died: yea, those many years ago.

Weather like this brings to mind the Good Ole Days in Saudi Arabia. You wanna talk about chez pitz? Jeez!!!! You’d wake up in the morning to a clear blue sky and see water dripping off the eaves, like it had just rained. HIDEOUS place!

After we left that garden spot — my father sent me and my mother home after she came down with a roaring case of amoebic dysentery and damn near died from it — we landed in San Francisco, where I went to junior high school.

Would that we could have stayed there! But ohhhhh nooo… After a few years my father landed a job shipping tankers out of Southern California. So it was off to lovely /s/ Long Beach.

I had been born in Long Beach, so my mother was familiar with the place. She was never a complainer: always looked at the positive side of things. But…ugh!!! Compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, it was chez pitz with a vengeance.

Oh, well. That’s there, not here. 😀 Here, it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s bourgeois, it’s icky. If I could move outta here today, I’d be on the road right now.

But alas, that ain’t gonna happen.

My son is established here. His dad and New Wife are living happily ever after here. I’m retired and would like never to see another university campus again. And so…here is where we are.