Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

Amor de Amazon…

by

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!

by

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…

by

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

by

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?

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…