Coffee heat rising

Colder Than a By-gawd…

…as my father used to say. Things were colder than, hotter than, faster than, slower than, pricier than, smarter than, stupider than…a by-gawd. 

And no, I don’t know if he knew what the word “bigod” meant. Or even that there was such a word. He wasn’t what you’d call a real eddycated fella.

At any rate, it’s passing crisp out there on the back porch: 40 degrees. For southern Arizona, that’s practically an Arctic freeze!

Was gonna take the dog for her (usual) daily walk this ayem, but decided agin’ it given the chill on the air. So…we loaf.

Actually, Ruby patrols the back yard, ever-hopeful that the beloved Pool Dude will show up. Oh, how she adores that man! 

And whyThat escapes me. He looks like an ordinary sorta fella, a guy who got trained to clean pools while he was serving a prison sentence (as indeed is the case with many pool dudes). WHAT has he done to so ingratiate himself with that dawg?

Seriously: she does know when it’s Pool Dude day (how???), and she lurks by the door or by the pool fence waiting for him to show up.

Ooohh well. It’s after 9:00 ayem and still damn cold out there.

Probably should stroll over to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s and restock a few (un)necessaries. But my enthusiasm for traipsing through the ‘Hood and dodging bums to the left of me and bums to the right of me is…well…limited. So is the enthusiasm for leaving Ruby locked up in the house when she really does need a walk.

Occurs to me that I could order up a service dog vest for Ruby, so I can take her into stores and (apparently) even on busses and streetcars. You can buy them on Amazon, no questions asked. Apparently people are not allowed(!!) to ask you for any other evidence or proof that your mutt really is a service dog. If we had one of those li’l costumes, we both could go into any of the five grocery and drug stores within easy walking distance of the Funny Farm. Down at the church, one woman even used to bring her lap-dog sized little mutt to the services, gussied up in one of those vests, and park it next to her on a pew!

Heh heh…not to say {cackle!!}….  Has a certain appeal, doesn’t it?

LOL! I wonder if bums would leave you alone if you had a corgi with you. 😀

Seriously: when a German shepherd would accompany me on a stroll around the ‘Hood, NO ONE would pester me. Lacking such a bodyguard, o’course, the locals will hit you up for handouts, make passes at you, holler obscenities at you…  Blech! What a place.

Maybe I should follow SDXB to Sun City: a.k.a. Mausoleum West. 

[sigh} I truly hated living there when my parents had a Sun City house.

Nice loafing porch, eh? Looks just like my parents' place...At the time they were there, the place was Hate Central. If anyone of a darker persuasion dared to move in, they would be HOUNDED out. And yea verily: I kid you not. That happened, just a year or so ago, to a friend of mine. So I assume Sun City is still as Whitey-White as it was Back in the Day.

What an awful place!

Well. They liked it, though. The constant roar of fighter jets overhead (ooohhh, it’s the sound of freedom! my mother would coo) was a worthwhile trade-off, in their minds, for a housing tract fully free of brown faces.

And one benefit of it would be a paucity of jerks hanging around waiting for women to ogle.

 

 

Dog as Everywhere Everywhen Companion

Good grief!!!  Did you realize that…my goodness!  You don’t need to have official, doctor-certified proof that your dog is a service dog to acquire a “service dog” vest that will let you take the critter just about anyplace you can go?

Check this out:  Service Dog Info

Really, all you need is a service dog vest, which you can order from Amazon.

And if some clown demands to see proof the dog is a certified “service dog”? Well:  You raise your hackles and you get huffy as hell and you tell him to take a flying f*** at the moon.

The likelihood that anyone will bother you is fairly low. But knowing humanity, don’t you just KNOW someone will pestiferize you? So be prepared with a high-handed reply. Practice it at home, even.

Betcha you could get away with it 99% of the time.

😀

Seriously (almost)… If I could take Ruby with me, right this minute I’d get off my duff and hike over to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts, dawg in tow. Dawg would be delighted. I’d get a bottle of beer or a package of junk food. And I wouldn’t feel even the slightest bit guilty over galloping off and leaving the dawg behind at the house.

Strangely Healed…

The other day I was whinging on and on and freakin’ ON about the aches and pains of Olde Age. And now, amid a gorgeous Tuesday evening richly festooned with Christmas lights? Weirdly, almost ALL the pain is g0ne!

Why??? THAT is beyond me.

Obviously, if I knew what makes it come and go, I might be able to arrange for it to be gone more than here. 

Ohhh well.

Ruby the Corgi and I traipsed all over the ‘Hood this evening, regaled by piles and piles of Christmas lights. What a hoot!

Over in the Richistans, where people have lots of money to diddle away on this stuff, the place looks like Times Square! 😀

Seriously: every house is all lit up. It’s quite the spectacle.

Not so much over here on the po’ folks’ side. But even we have some light festivals.

There’s a little Protestant church down on Main Drag South...a generic sorta thing. Looks like they have a choir. So…hmmm…  I’m thinking about asking them if they’ll let me join it.

Or not. A good choir is a time-consuming thing. And…with no formal music training, I really don’t have all that much to offer.

What the heck..I do need a way to meet and be around people. But…who needs me, eh? ;-D

Seriously: I’m just not that good around humanity. And trying to introduce myself to and join some new group is quite the challenge for me. I’m thinkin’…I don’t want to work that hard.

Let us think about it…

 

Kickin’ & Screamin’…into the 21st Century

{chortle!} Welp, it looks like I’m gonna be FORCED to come into the (dire!) 21st Century. If you don’t have your own chariot, you now pretty much have to hire a robo-taxi: a driverless monstrosity that requires an A.A. in computer tech to operate.

How CAN I say how much I absolutely positively do NOT want to learn a complicated new system for hiring a cab and getting around the city?

Those ba*tards at the Mayo, egged on by Dear Son, have invalidated my driver’s license. When you live in a hectic L.A.-style city like Phoenix, this  puts the eefus on…just about everything.

Fortunately, because I live smack in the middle of everything, I’ve been getting by mostly on foot: whatever I need is within reasonable walking distance. That would include…

  • A Sprouts
  • An Albertson’s
  • A Fry’s
  • A Walgreen’s
  • A Bookman’s
  • An El Rancho
  • A wine shop
  • A UPS store
  • A computer store
  • A hair stylist
  • A dentist
  • A veterinarian

And  many, many more. The truth is, I don’t need a car to live comfortably and shop easily here.

As long as I’m living in this house, I’m within easy walking distance of everything I need…and then some. Outside of walking distance? Lemme tellya: have we got the robotaxis!!! 

Actually, we still have a few taxis driven  by humans, which I much prefer. ‘Cause I’m still a denizen of the 20th century, right? 😉

Interestingly, the neighborhood seems to be holding its value. We just welcomed the first Black family to our environs…and so it’s much to be hoped that we are in the 21st century and therefore that eventuality will not torpedo our property values. They look like nice folks…and I think they have cute kids.

I’m excited to welcome them and try to make friends with them. And…well…we’ll see how that goes! Even the 21st century is still part of Mittel-America. Time will tell.

 

Never a Frikkin’ Dull Moment

Now we’re told that a slew of aluminum pots and pans — sold by different retailers under different brand names — will leak lead into your food. Jayzuz! Never a frikkin’ dull moment, eh?

Looks like none of my cookware falls into these categories. Probably because I bought all my spectacularly overpriced pots and pans at Pottery Barn and Macy’s: years ago.  When I had an income…  Sometimes there’s an advantage to paying way too much for that kinda stuff.  Plus I believe mine are all stainless, not aluminum.

How can I count the ways that I don’t wanna get up and start charging around?

Well, it’s only quarter after seven, so Ruby and I can loaf for awhile longer. But soon we’ll have to get on the road for the morning hike around the ‘Hood.

My revered (reverewared?) son came over yesterday afternoon and supervised tha AC guy’s activities. That was a mercy! I wouldn’t have had a chance of climbing up to the roof or tromping around observing what the guy was doing — because I wouldn’t have any idea what he was supposed to be doing.

So just now the system is pounding away. Back porch thermometer says it’s 46° out there. Not unreasonably chill for December. I guess. Doesn’t do much to inspire me to schlep the dawg around the park, though. 😮

This evening we have to traipse to the physical therapists’ gym and waste another couple of hours going hup-hup-hup. I do not see that this routine does anything whatsoever for the hip pain. What works is…yes: time and the river flowing.

Anyway, the aches and pains have faded to near-absence. So I figure that in another week or so I can put my well-exercised little foot down and call a halt to the PT shenanigans.

Meanwhile, in the absence of said aches & pains (most of them, anyhow), I need to hike to the nearby Sprouts this morning. Just what I wanna do… /s/  Still too early and too cold for any such expedition. Probably the dawg and the humann will just climb back into the sack and loaf for a couple more hours.

********

2;10 p.m.

Back from the Sprouts…and the Albertson’s…and various stores in the associated shopping center.

The outfit that sold me the shoes, one of which fell apart, claimed they’d  never sold any such shoes.

R-i-i-i-g-h-t…  Like I buy so many shoes I can’t remember where I get them. 

So I got nicely screwed there. And will never buy anything at that store again.

The skies are vibrating with the roar of military jets charging back and forth. Think most of them are coming out of the Sun City area, which is almost adjacent to Luke Air Force Base. However, a few seem to be lurking on the opposite side of the Valley — the east side, which would not be true if they were Luke planes.

Haven’t seen any nuclear bomb clouds, so I assume we’re not at war. For the nonce.

***

Sit your butt down in an easy chair, fire up the computer, start dorking around online and… RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE * RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE * RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE… Some a$$hole on the line trying to hustle you.

My GAWD but I’m sick of our idiotic phone system

Really, sometimes I think that I ought to just unplug the phones whenever I’m home, unless I’m using them to call out. But..of course…that will mean that friends and business acquaintances will never be able to call in to reach me on the goddam phone.

Let’s see if we can make the phone jangle some more by trying to take a nap between now and this evening’s hup hup hup session…

😀  😮  😀

 

 

Another Night of the Sh!theads…

BAM!
      BAM!
            BAM!
                  BAM!

The local sh!theads are out in force this evening, playing with their fireworks (most of them illegally smuggled in from Mexico) and scaring the bedoodles out of the dog.

Idiots!

Ohhh well…sounds like the li’l darlin’s ran out of ammunition. They’ve pretty well quit now.

What a bunch of jerks!

It’s not very late, though: hafta hand them that much. Only about 8:45.

O’course, that implies the jerks are kids, for whom some even more jerkish adult purchased the fireworks.

What IS the matter with people?