Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

High as a Kite? Or Crazy as a Loon?

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In central Arizona’s lovely August heat, Ruby and I have to get out for the daily doggy-walk right at or even shortly before dawn. This stroll takes us around Upper Richistan, about a mile of shaded walking…two if we elect to walk up toward our friend Marge’s house, visit the cow pasture in those parts, and stroll back to the Funny Farm.

This morning was icky hot and humid, so we limited the day’s hike to the Upper Richistan loop. It’s around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. by the time we get to those parts.

So we’re strolling along the road when along comes this couple, a youngish man and what appears to be his wife or girlfriend. And the woman…well…she’s clearly stoned out of her mind. She’s already kinda raving on, and when she sees Ruby, she goes BONKERS.

She starts carrying on with ohhhh corgi!!! it’s a CORGI. look at her cute little butt! And then on and on and on about the cute little butt.

We’re not going to get away from this nut case, so I end up deciding to make an about-face and take another route, back into our low-rent precincts of the ‘Hood .

***

This is Business as Usual in the ‘Hood. The pair probably came from the slum apartments that stand on the far side of Conduit of Blight Blvd. That place, which once meandered pleasantly through a rambling golf course — now a gigantic weed patch — started out as a compound of upper-middle-class rentals. But over the years they’ve gone steadily downhill, and now the golf greens are dead and the apartments are run-down dumps. A resident once shot a cop through the front door of one of those fine dwellings.

Oh well…. Derailed from our usual route through the sylvan glens of Upper Richistan, we head back into our section of the ‘Hood. Up a cross-street to the north of us…hmmmmm….  Some of the houses there are being rebuilt and upgraded. Evidently somebody thinks that, given the central location and the widespread hallucination that there’s something kewl about the lightrail, they can fancify a house and sell it for quite a bit more than it’s worth.

Oh well, indeed.

We circle back into our part of the ‘Hood, over to where the cop lives with his young family, past the home of our eccentric pal who escaped here from the Darkest West Side. And as we walk, we pass by the Old Lady’s House.

Oh, dear.

This woman, a long-time resident of the ‘Hood — quite possibly an original owner! — was widowed and apparently left with exactly nothing. She simply didn’t have the funds to maintain a house, whether or not she owned it free and clear. And one of the things she skimped on to get by was…oh, yes: homeowner’s insurance.

Sooo… When the wild, hurricane-like storms we had a few years ago came through and tore a hole in her roof, she couldn’t afford to get the roof fixed!

This apparently didn’t much matter most of the time: she couldn’t afford air conditioning, either, so it was gonna be hotter than the hubs in there all summer and colder than a bygod all winter. But the big problem was, whenever it rains, water pours into the house like a cascade.

That’s what the wretched woman was having to live in.

Finally, the house was removed from her possession… Unclear whether she died, whether she moved in with someone and just abandoned the place, or whether it was taken for taxes. Most of us think the latter, but who knows? She was moved out of there, and the place stood vacant for awhile.

Now apparently someone has bought it. Whether as an investment or to live in it is unclear. WhatEVER: they just finished installing a whole new roof! And now they’re over there fixing up the walls and presumably repairing and spiffing up throughout.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the present owners move into it, or whether they’ll sell it for a handsome profit.

A place around the corner that was basically rebuilt from a few surviving walls recently sold for something over a million bucks. To give you an idea: my first house in the ‘Hood was a block up the street: I paid $125,000 for it and felt that was too much….  Zillow thinks my present house — same builder, same model, a block & a half further from Conduit of Blight’s noise and crime — is worth $535,000 and change.

Can you imagine?

I sure can’t!!

In-Effing-Credible….

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Whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever you have to do, it HAS to be the hard way!

LOL!

This morning I wanted to run by the grocery store to pick up an extension cord for the laptop and, while I was at it, replenish the pantry a bit. Visits to two huge supermarkets yielded NO extension cord. But I did find one at the neighborhood Albertson’s, my very least favorite place to shop because of the shady adventures in the parking lot. I head for the check-out with that and a bottle of cheap white…and am told…

Nope.

No. No, I cannot buy a bottle of wine.

Why? Because it’s Sunday morning. In Arizona, it’s illegal to sell alcoholic beverages of any kind before noon on Sunday. Holy holy holeeeeee….

Shee-ut!!! I’d forgotten about that!

Furious, I walked out and left the other stuff I’d intended to buy — admittedly not much, but if I have to go to some other store or shop at some other time, why should I stand in line at a cash register twice?

Aren’t you happy, don’t you feel privileged to have sanctimonious Kris-tee-anns looking out for your morals?

It’s 11:34 now. In another 20 minutes, I’ll set out for AJ’s, where I’druther fork over my money, if fork over I must. The only reason I didn’t drive down there this morning was that I do not feel like shopping and I just wanted to get the damned errand-running over with.

In another fine snafu, apparently American Express never received this month’s payment. Got a threatening collection letter from them.

Called. They have THE best customer service people! Talked at length with a sweetie-pie who has an exotic accent. Got that straightened out. They’re forgiving the late charge; first thing tomorrow morning I will head over to the credit union and get that bill paid electronically.

I still haven’t seen the bill. Don’t see it anywhere around the Funny Farm. Probably it got delivered to the neighbor who got SDXB’s house when the City bought it and gave to them (yes: FREE!) after the new airport runway displaced them. That address has the same street number, but a one-word difference in the streets’ name — like Neighborhood Lane vs. Neighborhood Road. Stuff is misdelivered all the time. I have to mark on orders from Amazon “ROAD, please, not Lane!” Otherwise, they take stuff to her and I never see it.

Bein’ from a totally different socioeconomic world, she and her family don’t forward misdelivered packages or mail. If it’s mail, they just throw it in the trash. If it’s a package, they apparently keep it for themselves.

Interesting how customs differ, even within a given country.

Welp…in another 20 minutes, God will allow me to buy a bottle of dinner wine. So I might as well get started traipsing down to AJ’s.

Quick (HOT) Trip to the Park…

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A crisp 99 degrees at 7:30 this morning. But this balmy figure was besmirched by the humidity: almost 30%. Yeah: that’s thirty percent.

Ruby and I set out for the requisite doggy-walk around 5:30 or 6:00. Hoping the park would be free of its usual dog-and-human horde, we went in that direction, since she dearly loves to walk around in the park.

And yeah…there were fewer people. BUT the usual morons who ignore the law were there chasing their dogs around off-lead.

What is it about a sign that reads

DOGS MUST BE ON LEASH

that’s hard to understand?

And do people who feel entitled to ignore that law (it’s a county-wide leash LAW, not a local park rule) seriously believe that other people and other people’s dogs just loooove to have their pooches come bounding up to them? Is it really possible that NONE of these ninnies has ever landed in the middle of a dog fight? Or are they just too stupid to imagine the scene in the ER when they’re carted in? Or the scene as their dog lays on the ground bleeding out, after someone’s German shepherd gets done with it?

Ruby is fairly harmless, as she weighs only 35 pounds.

But the late, great Anna the Ger-Shep most decidedly was NOT harmless. And…her life’s goal was to rid the earth of other dogs. To that end, she had developed a strategy:

When an idiot’s dog would come bouncing up to her, she would assume a goofy grin. This would cause the idiot to imagine she wanted to play with his dog. No amount of hollering at him to KEEP YOUR DOG BACK! would make a dent on the nitwit’s stupidity. Some of them would reply, “oohhh it’s all right! They just want to playyyyy!”

Yeah. If eviscerating your dog and scattering its guts across the park is “play,” I guess so.

This is why I tend to stay away from the park: it’s a magnet for the Dumb and the Feckless.

But today Ruby was determined to trot over there. Why not? thought I…

Well, we didn’t have any Dog Incidents (despite several nitwits’ off-leash dogs). But my gawd! The HEAT!

It was just too hot to make the full mile’s circuit around the park.

So we walked down to the southwest corner, where the house that the aging owners apparently lost is under construction…and under construction…and under….  They’ve been trying to restore that place for at least a year, and finally have given up. Saw an ad recently that they’re selling it as is.

And “as is” is one, unholy, deconstructed mess. Whoever buys it (if anyone is foolish enough to buy it) is gonna have to tear it down and start over. That will include rebuilding the swimming pool, too.

How you could possibly sell it for enough to cover the repair and reconstruction costs escapes me. It’s right on the corner of an east-west feeder street and a road that goes from the northernmost border of North Central all the way south to the state office building complex. So….commuters in the know who have jobs or business in that complex ride that street all the way south in the morning and all the way north in the evening. You’d be crazy to choose to live in a house on that road! Especially in that specific lot…

I met the son of the couple who own(ed) the place. And I suspect he was a guy with a prison record and so couldn’t get a decent job.

At one point I wanted to hire an arborist. I’d heard about this guy via the neighborhood Facebook page…and it appears that some of the glowing recommends offered there were, uhm…slightly exaggerated. He did an OK job, but — frankly — not great. Gerardo and his boys would’ve done a better job, and Luis certainly could have. But ohhhhh no! Nothing would do but what I had to hire an “expert.”

My suspicion is that the guy was an ex-con who couldn’t get a hired job, and so had to start his own little low-talent “business.” Friend of mine has a son who was (for ridiculous reasons IMHO) clapped in the slam, and he has had one bitch of a challenge getting paying work, now that he’s “paid his debt” to society.

Hey! How hard can it be to trim trees, right?

Well…hard enough to surpass that guy’s skills, that’s for sure.

Presumably, his business went nowhere, and I’d put money on it that the parents’ Social Security and savings weren’t enough to support all three of them, even with a paid-off house.

If it was paid off. They may have had to borrow against it, either to start the guy’s business or, if my speculation is right, to pay his lawyers’ fees and fines.

WhatEVER, they vacated the house, and the contractors who bought it for renovation labored for months and then just gave up. So it’s sad and yet kinda morbidly interesting to walk by there and watch the construction efforts.

My guess is, they’re trying to sell it to someone who will level the building and start over from scratch. Which probably should’ve happened in the first place.

 

 

Coolin’ Down!

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Wunderground sez it’s supposed to hit 112 today. But I wouldn’t put any money on it.

After yesterday’s scorcher, this morning is nice and balmy. Skies are overcast, the cloud cover very slowly growing thicker. It looks suspiciously like we’ll get some rain today.

But best of all, the inside of the house has cooled into the habitable range. Without the sun blasting down on the roof and the skylights, the temp in the house is an astonishing 77 degrees.

Crazy!

Speaking of attempts to cool down…I bought a couple packages of Talenti ice cream at Albertson’s the other day. The kind that comes in small round plastic containers. And the one I happen to crave just now? I can NOT get it open.

Ran hot water over the lid.

Nope.

Tapped the lid all the way around the rim.

Nope.

Knocked the lid hard on the floor, all the way around the rim.

Nope.

Ran hot water over it again.

Nope.

So I guess whenever I get off my duff, I’ll take it back and complain. O’course I’ve already tossed the receipt, so won’t get any money back. But after this, I also won’t buy ice cream there.

Don’t buy much at that store anyway. It’s one of those fine establishments where you don’t feel safe in the parking lot. So it ain’t much loss.

Eyeballing real estate ads.

The prices have gone completely out of reason.

Here’s a place in town…not far from where I live, as a matter of fact. They want SIX HUNDRED GRAND for it.

They’ve renovated the interior…hafta say that for it. Looks like they’ve done a good job at it, too, if you like that kind of stark effect. The backyard, while not a wreck, is gonna require some expensive landscaping. All in all, not a bad li’l house…but still…that’s an INSANE price.

But so is everything else. I couldn’t even begin to get into the coveted Central Avenue high-rise now — prices are pushing a million bucks. For two-bedroom blah apartments.

Price of a house in the same zip code? $1.15 million bucks. And up.

Here’s a two-bedroom look-alike apartment in the high-rise where my friends J & L live.  It looks exactly like their place. Under 1200 square feet…over 700 grand.

Wow!!

For what I could get for my house, I couldn’t afford to move anyplace in the city of Phoenix. Well…not anyplace where one would want to live. Prices are comparably crazy in Fountain Hills

This thing is a condo — an apartment — and centrally located. Look at the insane price! And you’d be running up and down stairs all the time! And it has no yard!

Sun City prices are still below the market in the rest of the metropolitan area. That would be because only a certain type of person wants to live in a ghetto for old people — thus the market is limited, to a degree. And they’re cheesily built, just like most of the cheesy new(er) construction in the Phoenix area.

Well…I’d better post this. WordPress keeps trying to throw me out. And I really should get off my duff and start moving around. ‘Bye!

Lordie! STOP THE WORLD…

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i wanna get off!

Seriously… Don’t you feel like we’ve gone through the Looking Glass and come out on the other side?

Fires and smoke consuming Canada and the East Coast. War rages on in Eastern Europe. A living former president of the United States is indicted for a felony. A former prime minister of Great Britain stalks off the job. And Apple brings us a technology that blends reality and fantasy into one weird world.

Not that the world wasn’t already weird enough….

  • Boris Johnson, yes, quits as the UK’s prime minister — a little too much indiscretion about the partying.
  • Mark Zuckerberg brings us a fancy new headset that blends reality with fantasy. And why not? Who can tell the difference, as it is?
  • The former President of the United States is indicted for a felony that he signed into law.
  • Same Pretend President is found to have boxloads of state secrets hidden in his shower.
  • Canada is burning down.
  • The smoke from Canada is asphyxiating the northeastern U.S.
  • Chat GPT is scaring the bedoodles out of the guy who developed it.
  • A logjam of cargo ships is already piling up off the West Coast: more to come.
  • There’s such a thing as “revenge travel” these days.
  • AI is charging up the road like a demented buffalo.
  • A new prescription treatment for Alzheimer’s is coming up the pike. Let’s hope it works! 😀 It’ll be just about on time for the likes of me. Unfortunately, it appears to have a high incidence of untoward side effects. Plus to get it, you have to have a biweekly IV infusion — doesn’t that sound like fun!

***

Ahhh, the Gnus of the Day.

I refuse to pay for TV. Profoundly, indeed, did I resent our Civic Fathers taking free, off-the-air television away from us. I could see paying for cable if there were something worth watching, or if something that runs regularly were worth paying for. But, alas…unless you’re a sports fan, there really isn’t much of anything that, IMHO, is worth plunking down a monthly fee.

Seriously: if you have the Internet (which most of us do), you can import just about all the televised drivel you can stand to contemplate, right on your computer. Ad-free. I use a big iMac to follow the news and the very few PBS shows still worth watching. Why pay extra for that stuff?

***

Meanwhile, closer to home:

I’ve been too sick to pay the bills, what with this li’l covid adventure. Most of them autopay. But a couple don’t, because I don’t much trust this or that vendor. Cox, alas, is one of them. Just realized I probably didn’t pay the recent Cox bill, because I’ve been too distracted to notice which bills were what.

So tomorrow I’ll have to get on the phone and pay that by charging it up on the AMEX card.

Goodie.

****

One of covid’s interesting effects is to render your brain nonfunctional. Thus: never did hit “publish” on this post. Never did pay the phone bill.

Still seem to be online, though. First thing after dawn (it’s about 3 a.m. now), the phone predicament will have to be dealt with.

Coughing coughing coughing coughing. Every BARK BARK BARK rips into the spavined back and the sore hip.

Gotta try to get back to sleep!

Humanity…HOW have we survived?

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Seriously, how HAS a creature so many of whose representatives seem dumb as posts managed to survive at all? Gawd, but humans are stupid!

Out the door this morning, in an early hour of a hot, sticky morning: doggy-walk time.

Ruby dearly loves to walk around the park. The human dearly hates it.

No doubt Ruby loves it first, because our yard has no grass, so that grass stuff is THE bidness. And second, because the damn place is overrun with dogs, many of them as ill-trained as she is. Whatever her sentiment, a visit to the beloved park means an hour-long Dawg Drag for the human: she hauls me around the park at the end of her lead, jerking here and jerking there.

She arrived here at the Funny Farm just as I was getting both boobs lobbed off at the Mayo. Upshot was, I had neither the strength nor the inclination to leash-train an obstreperous puppy. Upshot of that is: the morning dawg-drag.

This would be OK if other people would keep their dogs more or less under control.

Today, for a change, we didn’t encounter any dogs off the lead over there. The “dogs must be on leash” sign at the entrance is for other people, y’know… But on-leash dawg or off-leash dawg, Ruby wants to lunge at them, yanking me with her.

And today, just barely beginning to recover from the Cough from Hell, I am distinctly NOT in the mood to be jerked around.

I should call a vet and try to get a recommendation for a professional dog trainer. My dearly beloved, now long-retired vet did that for me when I had Anna the German shepherd. The guy he referred me to was a miracle-worker. Seriously: he had that dog under control in two sessions.

Heh! Here’s a new movie series, V, which really does bring up the question of how humanity will survive — the inevitable alien invasion, o’ course. Unreality oozes out of the production room, though, and comes to visit us right here. If it just weren’t so…true to life… 😮 Substitute a virus for the aliens, and you’ve got it.

Speaking of survival — or not: This morning I felt like maybe the agèd body was begin to schuck off the Killer Virus. Now, late in the afternoon, it seems to be thundering back. Dunno about you, though, but in my case whenever I come down with a bug like this, it’s always worst in the late afternoon. It’s 4:30 as we scribble. Can’t sleep — not least because of some moron coming door-to-door trying to hustle up lawn maintenance business. If I hadn’t been busy hammering at Death’s Door, I would have taken him up on that, since Gerardo and the boys have disappeared into the forest.

While hammering, though, I spent half the day driving from pillar to post through Phoenix’s Hellish L.A,-style traffic.

Up to Young Dr. Kildare’s office. They insist I owe them $160, even though I’ve repeatedly tried to pay them. Why my payments don’t go through escapes me. And them, too…apparently.

So I staggered through a covid fog up to his place and insisted on paying the bill in person. This time they took my AMEX card, even though over the phone his staff insists they don’t accept credit-card payments.

Why? Is there some REASON to inflict a mindless hassle like this on your clients? What, really, is the point?

Then it was over to the credit union, to check in person if there was some reason earlier payments didn’t go through. Staff were as mystified as I was.

So now I’ll have to ride herd on that nonsense for a couple of weeks, But…in my covid haze, I’ll be damned if I can get through the online hoop-jumps to access my account. So that means I’ll have to drive back up there again in another ten days or two weeks. Better put that on the calendar, or I’ll forget it.

Hmmm…in other sylvan realms…

Think solar power will be our over-developed planet’s savior? Think again!  We’ve been merrily trashing the Mohave Desert, sucking up its water and blighting its surface.

{sigh}  Y’know, folks…there’s only one solution to the Kill Mother Nature problem: that’s to QUIT MAKING BABIES.