So….how is it possible for the day to be soooo busy before 7:30 in the morning?
Incredibly, the Dog’s human managed to sleep all the way through till nigh unto 5 a.m. which of late represents some kind of record.
It’s been raining all night; thunderstorms and more rain predicted. Still…at 5:00 it’s relatively cool, which is an unfamiliar mercy. “Relatively,” though, is a relative term… 😀
Human slams around getting dressed. Dog barks: someone’s in back. Grab a steak knife, peer out the back door, and…by damn! There’s New Pool Dude out there,
Holy mackerel.
Well, you can’t blame him for wanting to get through the day’s pool jobs before the sun comes up, that’s for sure!
Bridle up the Dog: out the door.
Even though it’s relatively(!)(?) cool, the air is SOOO muggy and warm it’s a swamp out there.
The cops are buzzing Gangbanger Central to the north of us…never a good sign. Is it safe to forge ahead? Hm. Consider the options:
Delaying the doggy-walk means canceling the doggy-walk, because it will soon be too hot to stroll around outdoors.
Proceeding with the doggy-walk means taking one’s chances with the Drama of the Day.
Heading south from the Shack means skirting the park, which at this hour will be overrun by idiots with their dogs off the leash, risking a dog fight.
On the other hand, any bums who chose to sleep out in the rain last night will be getting out of bed (as it were) and stumbling around. If this has meaning, I dunno what it is. Other than that I need a German shepherd, not a 23-pound corgi.
Oh WTF: into Upper Richistan it is!
The cop copter is north of Gangbanger’s Way, which suggests the scene of the drama is either north of the canal (meaning they’re after perps) or right along the canal (meaning they may be trying to locate a candidate for drowning or they may be chasing a perp who’s lurking in or near the canal). In that case, it’s relatively safe on the surface streets here in the ’Hood. Maybe.
Dogwalk is mercifully uneventful. Most of the Five Ayem Horde are absent, presumably staying in because of the wet weather. Good. We cover a couple miles and return to the Funny Farm without getting rained upon, kidnapped by a fleeing desperado, or questioned by suspicious cops.
WonderAccountant, who kindly hired on to do the bookkeeping that I’m getting too senile to manage accurately, is supposed to come over today to tackle this month’s chore. Despite sleeping most of the night, I’m bushed (at 8:30 in the morning) and wish to go back to bed.
Ah: on the calendar: W.A. “early afternoon”…thank the heavens!
Yesterday it was off to a new Dental Type, blowing away the afternoon. Orthodontist…alas, not a candidate for New Dentist. She says the titanium stake in the upper jaw is NOT infected. Therefore the eye thing does not signal a more serious issue. Probably the injury that instigated the eye cyst was the slicing up of the nose to remove the suspected melanoma.
That’s something, anyway.
She recommended an actual dentist, not too far away. I may call that one and make an appointment to get acquainted. However, I’ve already established an acquaintance with the WonderAccountants’ dentist, who as far as I can tell is excellent.
The Baltimore dude who came out West and bought our beloved long-time dentist’s practice does not make the cut. Not by a long shot. Interestingly, when you look him up online locally, it appears that he’s opening a bunch of offices on the west side, apparently with the intention of recruiting low-income patients on welfare.
Is there a REASON why there’s never a dull momentaround this place???????
The thermometer in the shade of the back porch actually DOES read 110 degrees. And clouds are building up all around us.
Truth to tell, 110 would be tolerable if it were really “a dry heat.” But with monsoon storms rearing up 360 degrees around the horizon, “dry heat” it ain’t.
***
Heh! Probably the sobriquet “Crime Central” overstates conditions here in the ‘Hood. But it appears I’m not the only resident in the habit of looking at things that way.
When I bop on down to the ultra-local Sprouts, on the northeast corner of Conduit of Blight and Main Drag South, I spot a Police Situation in progress: four cop cars out in front of the Walgreen’s on the corner, lights flashing frantically. It’s a couple hundred yards across the shopping center’s parking lot, though, and…and…well…i want that damn ice cream!
So, screw it: I park the car and dart into the Sprouts. Grab the ice cream and shoot back out through the checkout line. Staff there had not yet heard news of the present drama. Which, once I get situated in the Dog Chariot, I see is still fully under way. Half a dozen officers are swarming. None of the cop cars’ lights have been shut off.
Circle back north over the parking lot — in the opposite direction from the Scene of the Whatever-it-is. Slide south on Blight (the only way you can go because of the effing light-rail tracks, which are fortified with concrete borders), slither past the Walgreen’s Theater, hang a U-ie to bolt up toward the ‘Hood. Proceed north, surprisingly enough, without interference.
Now fully infected with curiosity, minutes after walking in the door, I get on the Web in search of a report as to what is going on.
No clue on the police dispatch site.
No clue on the local gnus sites.
Post a query on the neighborhood Facebook page, which is haunted by locals with powerful radars.
Got a clue what was going on at the 19th & Northern Walgreen’s this afternoon, along about 3;30 or so? At least 4 police cars were standing near the door, lights flashing.
Forthwith, get an answer:
Probably just because it’s a day that ends in “y”… in that area it’s such a common event. I’m frustrated that we have to think about a “safe” way to enter/exit our neighborhood anymore… which usually means East or south, but rarely north, and almost never west.
ls there a question why I feel exhausted all the time?
No. The truth is, it’s not feel exhausted…it’s that I objectively am exhausted all the time! Because I do not live in reality. I live in the Land of the Loony Tunes!
First thing this morning, I’m flying around trying to get dressed to drive out to Scottsdale to get my hair done by the Great Hair Stylist of the Western World, Shane. Gotta be there by 9:30. which means I have to leave here by 8:30; 8:45 at the very latest. Meanwhile we have the usual dog feeding and house maintenance chores to get through first, in addition to showering ad washing hair and finding some clothes that aren’t too embarrassing to wear in public.
A-n-n-n-d as I’m charging around: BING BONG! Front doorbell.
Helle’s Belles, now what?
Look out the front window and there’s Ex-Pool Dude, the guy I canned because he made such a f**kin mess of the pool. ohhhh noooo….
He has gone out and bought a brand-new Hayward pool cleaner!
God help us. The things cost four hundred bucks! He can’t afford four bucks for lunch, dammit.
This, I realize, is how desperate the poor guy is to get back on my payroll.
I tell him I’ve already bought one and it’s already installed in the pool. And after making nice to him for a few minutes, I send him on his way.
{sigh} Talk about your guilt trips!
Fortunately, I’m batting around too frantically to think very hard about this.
Fly around bat around fly around bat around fly out the door, streaking toward Scottsdale’s tony Fifth Avenue district, wherein Shane resides.
We’re trying to get my hair to grow back to its former glory. You’ll recall that I had to have it all hacked off short after I broke my shoulder, because I could no longer comb it. If it ever does grow back, it’ll take years and years. What we had this morning was a couple inches of shag.
He did his usual handsome job of spiffing it up. But at this rate I’ll never have long hair again. Right now it’s about an inch long in back, maybe three inches on top.
Weather: 110 and overcast today. Not the kind of stuff one enjoys driving through, from pillar to post — no matter how great your car’s AC may be. And mine is just fine.
After the junket to Scottsdale, I drove back through the Arcadia district, sight-seeing and considering real estate opportunities — many more than used to now exist for us po’ folk in those parts, in the form of shiny new apartment buildings.
Apartment living is not much to my taste — been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again — but as a practical matter, it may be one of the only choices for Olde Age.
********
Didn’t get this posted y’day…one distraction after another. In eight minutes, I have to leave for the Mayo, therein to harass MayoDoc about the eye thing that my 80-year-old (and then some) ophthalmologist wants to take a scalpel to. Sorry, Doc: second opinion time!
Soooo…let’s send this off, and then while I’m waiting endlessly in the Mayo’s waiting room, we can get started on another post…
Augh! This morning’s doggie parade was more crowded than usual. And forgodsake, it’s Tuesday,. Wouldn’tcha think, SOME of these dog-lovers would have to get ready for work?
We leave at 5 a.m., in hopes of missing the worst of the Doggie Jamboree. Didn’t work today: apparently everybody else has the same idea. Often we pass about 10 dogs — each of whom Ruby wishes to despatch to its maker. So I try to get out of the house the minute we roll out of the sack. Didn’t work this morning. We must have had to do avoidance maneuvers around at least 15 pooches…maybe more.
When they say the corgi is in effect a short German shepherd, they’re not kidding. Ruby brooks no shenanigans from other dogs, which if given her choice she would clear from the earth. This was the way the great Anna the GerShep behaved: she wished for nothing more than a dog-free planet.
The human species, however, is a hopelessly stupid animal and is unable to grasp the idea that other people’s dogs don’t necessarily “just wanna playyyy” with their li’l furbaby.
Why, one wonders, would you assume that a human who lives with a given dog doesn’t know how to read her dog’s body language? That she’s never had any other encounter with any other nudnik’s “furbabies”?
After two miles of dodging and wrestling, we arrive back at the Funny Farm. Feed the birds. Toss together a breakfast. Brew the coffee. Dodder out to the side deck and lay out breakfast. But before the human can sit down, it’s
WTF is going on now? Sounds like every fire engine, fire truck, fire chief’s car, ambulance, and cop car is converging on us. And it goes on and on and ON! The dispatcher’s website shows SIXTEEN units dispatched, another on the way, and a commander at the scene. And now we have a Play-Nooz helicopter hovering over the house. Goodie.
Apparently it’s a “car yard” fire — which would be another way of saying “junkyard fire.” The area north of Gangbanger’s Way is chuckablock full of junk yards and cemeteries for defunct vehicles, refrigerators, stoves, freezers, washers, dryers, toilets, damaged construction material, busted cabinetry, kaput drywall, and whatnot. Hmmm…here we are: Doesn’t this look like a fun way to start your day!
Eleventh Avenue is four blocks east and ten blocks west of the two major thoroughfares that carry commuter traffic from north Phoenix, Sunnyslop, and North Central into downtown Phoenix from the east and west and that intersect with two freeways bearing traffic into town from the northerly whitey suburbs. It’s 7:20 in the morning…
Heh. You don’t even want to know what a mess the traffic must be out there.
Thank the Gods for not having to commute anymore.
Pool Dude lives in Sunnyslop. This would be about the time he leaves for his first job of the day. Dollars to donuts he’s dead trapped in unmoveable traffic, as we scribble. Lucky him!
LOL! The elder generation in my family is now long “late.” But I can remember when our best friends Barbara and Larry used to get together with us in the days after the official holiday for a “Thank God Thanksgiving Is Over” celebration.
Barbara and I could cook — and I mean really cook. We were part of the generation of young professionals who became entranced by Julia Child and friends. Both of our mothers, the distaff side of a working-class generation, could put out a tasty and workpersonlike meal in the Joy of Cooking tradition. Barbara and I stood on their shoulders and engaged Julia Child.
So needless to say, the bland, sawdust-flavored turkey, the predictable mashed potatoes and beans, the gooey-sugary punkin pie were less than perfectly thrilling for us. By the same token, a swell-elegant Julia Child spread was equally lost on our relatives.
Nevertheless, we and our husbands would dutifully go to the November 25 family shindigs. And then as soon as the obsequies were done, it was THANK GOD THANKSGIVING IS OVER time. TGTGIO!
The following weekend, we would spend half the day in her kitchen or mine, cooking up some fantastic creation that actually had…you know…flavor.
Alas, those days are past. Our parents are dead and gone, as are mine and my father’s third wife and her daughter and grandson and son-in-law. (Those were folks who thought a saline-saturated Butterball turkey steamed half the day in a hot pot and served up with a Jell-O salad was delicious!) Barbara got mad at me for reasons I never have understood, and to this day refuses to speak to me. Besides, in the absence of Thanksgiving, of course, there can be no TGTGIO.
Of late, though, my son’s friends have developed a kind of substitute. The young people put on a big feast at one couple’s home, out in a North Phoenix suburb. It’s quite lovely! They invite all the aged relatives and a bunch of family friends. The kids are milling around merrily — by now, alas, they’re teenagers, but presumably in a few years they’ll be having their own TG dinners with their own little kids milling around. People bring stuff, creating a kind of potluck to complement the extraordinary turkey the young father cooks up in the brick oven he built in the backyard.
The company is good. The food is excellent. And unlike the traditional build-up to TGTGIO, it’s something to look forward to.
Here’s something that I found while cleaning out DropBox…written in 1997. I don’t think it was ever published, anywhere.
Noises
Classic Arizona Road in Rain
It takes a lot of doing to get into the Western outback. The water you have to haul weighs many pounds more than the other gear you need to survive, more than food and nylon shelter and clothing and tools. Before you start to hike, you have to drive hundreds of miles beyond humanity’s fungoid reach, and even then you’re not quit of its traces. You’ll always spot old mine tailings, rusted tin cans, buried rail lines, bits and pieces of plastic debris. But you keep going, and going, and going: seeking a place out of earshot of Man, the Noisiest Animal.
I doubt if that place exists. In southern Utah, at the end of a long dirt road that wanders through nowhere, is a patch of spectacular red sand dunes, weirdly terra cotta against a cerulean sky, itself so blue it seems unnatural. The sand piles up in soft, shifting hillocks reminiscent of the Rub al-Khali, Saudi Arabia’s vast empty quarter, only rather than bone-white and endless, the dunes are orange-red before a backdrop of violet mountains. It is a place that should be observed in holy silence.
Instead, the state of Utah has built a campground and thrown the place open to dune buggy and ORV enthusiasts. The chain-saw buzz of unmuffled gasoline engines rips the still air, and the brilliant dunes bear the scars of daily floggings. Signs listing the house rules are posted here and there: quiet hours between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. From six in the morning to ten at night, the human animal roars. There is no peace in this remote spot, a place unlike any other on earth.
Last night, after a 108-degree day, the evening was cool enough to invite me to stretch out on my backyard hammock and watch the sunset fade into the gathering dusk. A mockingbird trilled. A cicada sang, and I thought, I could fall asleep to this.
Not quite. As I settled into the swinging hammock and attuned my ear to the bird and insect chorus, a commercial jet thundered over on its way to Sky Harbor Airport. A cop helicopter grumbled above the war zone to the north. Cars surfed past on nearby main drags, and a distant roar like an angry ocean washed in from Interstate 17. An unmuffled car rumbled down a neighborhood street. My dog, Anna, ooked uneasily as she listened to someone else barking. I could make out three canine voices down the block, all yapping at once. On the radio, Marian McPartland jammed on with her jazz pianists; lazy with wine and distracted by the beauty of the evening sky, I had left the stereo playing and closed the door behind me when I came outside. Garbled music sifted through the Arcadia doors as unintelligible, distant racket. An air-conditioner kicked on, its growl as cranky as the copter’s. Wee-uu Wee-uu Wee-uu: a car alarm went off. Another jet whined past.
When I was a child, back in the dark ages of the 1950s, an airplane was such a rarity that whenever one appeared overhead, we all turned out of the house to gawk and thrill to the resonating thrum of the propeller engines. Jet planes filled us with awe, and airports had special viewing decks where people could go for a picnic, to watch planes land and take off. Who would think a time would come when the sky was never quiet? When the roar of jet engines was so commonplace we learned to ignore it, as we scarcely hear the white noise of a fan or a stream bubbling on rocks?
It was a quieter time: that is literal truth. You rarely heard a siren, airplanes were almost nonexistent, and no one was ever subjected to the noise vandalism of the rolling boom box. One of the charms of a city like San Francisco or New York was its noise: after dark, the traffic sounded like surf breaking in the distance. The groan of the stinking buses and the honk of gridlocked horns and the murmur of cars on their mission of commerce: these were the sounds of the city—
The sounds of the city The sounds that you hear In San Francisco On KSFO…560!
Bet the radio station has taken that jingle off the air.
I’d kill to sit beside an ocean right now, one bereft of boom boxes and jet engines and yapping dogs and burglar alarms and motor vehicles and air-conditioners. Yet a beach has its own racket: the bark of sea lions, the squeal of gulls, and of course the roar of seawater pounding on rocks and sand. What is it about the surf and ork ork ork and kee-ew kee-ew that seems better than a jet engine and arf arf arf and Wee-uu Wee-uu Wee-uu?
One day when Anna was a pup, I took her with me to peruse real estate in Fountain Hills, a once-isolated suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona. Although rampant development is fast overtaking Fountain Hills, it retains some sense of remote quiet. With its view of the rugged McDowell Mountains and a bordering, largely empty Indian reservation, it feels in some ways like a small town and in some like a retirement community.
True to her German shepherd breeding, Anna was a high-strung puppy, at 50 pounds wired and difficult to manage. When I would walk her in my city neighborhood, she would drag and lunge and yank me around, despite weeks of obedience training.
At one point during the Fountain Hills excursion, I figured it was time to let her out of the car—the place is an hour’s drive from my home, and we had been cruising around visiting open houses for quite some time. I found an empty lot going to weeds, a convenient place for Anna to do her thing, if she chose. We climbed out of the car into a noticeable silence. This place was quiet. Jets flew over, but there, far from the airport, they were still fairly high. No boom boxes thumped, no sirens wailed, no engines mumbled.
Just as noticeable was Anna’s calm. She seemed relaxed, even mellow. We walked around for a while, and she showed no inclination to yank me along or lunge back and forth.
After a while, some players from a nearby golf course approached in electric carts. They headed for a road crossing a few yards from us, and I thought, Here it comes! Wait till she notices those things! All gadgets wheeled and moving drove this puppy berserk: cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, skateboards, bicycles, roller skates, baby strollers. I braced for a frenzy.
The carts entered the roadway, so silent we could hear the riders’ conversation. Anna watched. I got a death grip on the leash and planted my feet on the ground. Any second now, the sound, the fury. . . . Nothing. Ears up, hackles down, she regarded the carts with mild interest: not a single yap, much less the usual rabid outburst. We went on about our business in peace.
Amazed, I wondered what could have caused this attack of tranquillity. Maybe, I reflected, she was responding to the very quiet and stillness of the place—or more to the point, in real life she responded to the unsettling racket that permeates her home territory, known to humans as the back yard. Maybe the matrix of aggressive noise imposed on her normal surroundings made her aggressive. For much of the racket that impinges on our lives is aggressive: helicopters and jets are engines of war; barking dogs and car alarms, the sounds of fear; unmuffled Harleys and wall-rattling boom boxes, the thug’s menacing swagger.
No wonder our children suffer a plague of “hyperactivity”: like Anna, they exhibit symptoms of a kind of psychic asthma, a sickness of pollution. In effect, their out-of-control excitement is like wheezing, frantic gasping at a noxious irritant. A hyperactive child, like a wild puppy, tells us what happens to our minds and hearts when we are subjected to a nonstop barrage of hostile noise.
Screeching tires interrupted this reverie, and, enough being enough, the idyll in the backyard hammock came to an end. Besieged, I retreated indoors. Marian McPartland was still holding forth: a beautiful melody poured from the stereo. Here was the only defense in noise combat: I turned up the volume.
So….how is it possible for the day to be soooo busy before 7:30 in the morning? 
