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Life in the Desert

Hotter Than the Hubs…

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Jayzuz, it’s HOT out there!

Actually, it’s not so very hot: it’s kinda humid. In Arizona, humidity makes a warm day feel hotter than a by-gawd. Wunderground says the temp just now is only 94 degrees. Which for an Arizona mid-day is NOT very hot.

We’ve got 25% humidity, though. That’s fairly soggy, as an Arizona day goes.

I grew up in lovely Saudi Arabia: on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Days like this were normal in that garden spot. Seriously: I’ve seen it so humid that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky.

Kinda doubt that we’ll see that phenomenon here, though. It just ain’t a-gonna get that humid in lovely uptown Arizona: ever.

Ugh! Ten years of living in Arabia must have been an extended species of torture for my poor mother! She was an Upstate New York girl. There, we’re told, summer temperatures range from upper 70s to the mid-80s. I can’t imagine how she survived in the Hell that was Ras Tanura.

Honestly, today she’d be scared to death, what with the threats of war and actual attacks on the refinery. By this point, though, my father probably would have sent her and me back to the States. Probably wouldn’t have left, himself….he earned a stupefying salary and wouldn’t have been quick to abandon it.

At any rate…a hot, muggy day like this reminds me — if distantly — of those ugly days in Saudi Arabia.

One of the best things my father did for me and my mother was to send us back to the United States three months before he left that living Hell out there. We landed in San Francisco, my mother rented a nice apartment in a compound called Parkmerced, and then put me into an excellent public school. I really did enjoy that place…and given a chance and a choice, I’d go back there in an instant!

What a relief, to get out of the Hell that was the Ras Tanura Senior Staff School. Hell populated by nasty little devils led by morons pretending to be teachers….

I loved living in Parkmerced — one of the few things that made me happy at any time during my childhood. And really: given a chance, I’d go back there right now.

San Francisco! That’s the place!

 

 

Another Swampy-Dampy Day

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Yech! Feels like ugly, hot, wet Saudi Arabia out there, where I grew up on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Extraordinarily unpleasant morning for a doggy-walk.

But (ugh!) we’re back. The Human and the Dog are pretty well cooked. Dog is dosed with prednisone. Overdosed, actually: I accidentally gave her a whole pill, when she’s only supposed to get a half. Hope it doesn’t make her sick.

Not many fellow travelers in the park this morning. Understandably: it’s hot, sticky, and ucky out there. Horrible place to live: almost as bad as hideous Saudi Arabia, there by the by the seaside where I grew up. Horrible place!

Feeling on the ragged edge of “I can’t deal with this.” Dunno why…just don’t feel like coping with…anything. Not that there’s much to cope with this morning.

Truly: I hate Arizona.

Where would I rather live?

Mars,  maybe…..  😉

Seriously: San Francisco is where I’d rather be. A thousand times rather be.

It’s where we decamped after my father quit his job in Saudi Arabia and we finally came home. I was sick all the time out there, but that didn’t make much nevermind to the parental units. What finally changed my father’s mind and forced him to take a Stateside job was the amoebic dysentery that struck my mother.

She damn near died of it.

He loved her dearly, and her illness — a direct result of living in an unsanitary Third-World country — was what drove him to quit his spectacularly paying job out there and bring us home. At last. 

After we’d been living in San Francisco for awhile, my father landed a better-paying job, shipping out of Southern California: the land of the stupid and the home of the bourgeois. So it was off to Long Beach, where I’d been born 16 or 17 years before, and where my mother’s dearest friend dwelt.

Awful place! I hated living there. The schools were so backward it felt as though I’d been demoted about two grades. And my dreams of going to school at UC Berkeley went straight down the tube.

Arizona is ten times better….but that ain’t sayin’ much.

Hmmmm….where would I ‘druther be?  Let’s see….

  • San Francisco
  • Berkeley
  • Just about anyplace in the S.F. East Bay
  • New York City
  • Paris
  • London

Heh! Don’t ask much, do I?

Ohhhh well.  Here we are, on the ragged edge of Hell. We ain’t goin’ anywhere. And this is where I’ll be until I die.

Without a doubt.

Evening in the Park

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Ruby and her Human just back from the dusk perambulation of the neighborhood park. 😀

Oh, my!  It’s simply impossible not to love the young parents and their little kids over there!  Impossible not to love the teenagers hanging out.

What a wonderful place!

It was sheer, raw luck — and a savvy Realtor — that brought us to the ‘Hood. And I must say: I do feel incredibly lucky to be here.

In the years since SDXB and I moved into this neighborhood, the place has gentrified at a steady pace, property values drifting toward the stratosphere and affluent young professionals moving in with their families. Today it’s a lovely, upper-middle-class neighborhood, one that feels safe and pleasant and happy.

We shall see how long I can hang in here, as I sink into my dotage. But ideally, I’d like to be able to leave this house to M’hijito, so he can move in here if he likes or else sell the place for what will be, in the future, some outrageous price. One way the other, it will redound to his advantage.

And, I expect, to mine…over the years.

Icky-Sticky Day!

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LOL! This is one of those days that don’t happen in Arizona: hot and HUMID. Very humid. 😀

It feels almost like the weather used to feel in lovely Ras Tanura, where I grew up in Saudi Arabia, on the shore of the Persian Gulf.

Not quite, though. There, I’ve seen it start to rain out of a clear blue sky: that’s how wet the air would get there.

Garden spot, eh?

Anyway, hereabouts we’re told the humidity is 32% just now. And for Arizona…well…that’s more than passing damp. 😀

No clouds, though: The sky is gorgeous sterling blue. And no sign of fugitive raindrops.

Strolled around the park this afternoon…rather later in the day than I should have: it was a little warm for strolling. That notwithstanding, though, it was not excessively unpleasant. And as usual, fun to watch kids playing and grownups lolling around.

I do love our neighborhood and our park. Struggling to stay here: to avoid being moved to an old-folks’ institution. How to avoid that — displacement, I mean — gets more and more difficult to intuit. I’m awfully afraid I’m going to be forced out of my home, sooner or later, on the grounds that I’m too old to take care of myself. We haven’t reached that point yet…but it’s hard to avoid the fact that we’re headed there.

Indeed, my son wants us to visit a place called the Beatitudes, down the road from the ‘Hood. To which I say horrors! I’ve had friends who lived there.

And no, it’s not a bad place, as institutions go. But….it’s just that I absolutely, positively, passionately HATE institutional living. I hated living in the dorms. And spending the next few years living in a dorm for old folks is NOT how I want to wrap up my life.

There simply must be a better way….

Swampy-Dampy Walk

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Midafternooon…and the sky is gray, the air is soggy: feels like it wants to rain but can’t work itself up to that much effort.

Just back from an idle, unplanned stroll around the ‘Hood, sans doggy. It is SO WET out there, you feel like you’re in a sauna! Glad I didn’t take the corgi: she would have melted.

What does Wunderground predict for our parts?

Huh???  Only 5% chance of rain?

What ARE they smoking?

In summary: all the weather sites are describing “clearing skies.”

Ohhhhh…kayyyy…  That gray stuff up there is kinda funny-looking “clear.” But whatEVER.

Despite the gently threatening skies and the soggy air, a walk around the park is moderately pleasant. What could be more pleasant than watching the young people playing on the greens and under the trees, after all?

Gotta tellya: This is the place! I want to live here until I die. At this point, that’s likely to be another ten or fifteen years. With luck.

My great-grandmother and her daughter, my great-aunt, managed to stay in their home in the Berkeley foothills until the last cat was dragged out. Ideally, that’s how I’d like to wrap up my life.

Well. We shall see, eh?

Pray for the best. Or something.

Rainy-Day Monday

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About as un-Arizona a day as you can get!

😀

DepositPhoto; Rainy Weather © dnaumoidThe sky is gray, a soft wind is blowing, and it looks for all the universe like rain is y-cumin’ in. Wunderground says it’s 76º out there, cloudy, with 100% chance of rain.

Ya don’t say, Jose?

Seriously, it’s quite a beautiful day, in its style. Far as I can tell by the calendar, my son has NOT slated me to trudge to the Mayo today. Thank the heavens!

Also in the Thankful department, apparently no babysitter is scheduled to come here and supervise my every living, breathing moment. No one has showed up at the door, anyway.

C-R-R-R-A-A-A-A-C-K!
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE… 

Eeek!  What IS God trying to say to us?

My goodness, what strange weather. Just now it’s raining…sorta. Not, for sure, in the torrents one would expect to accompany a symphony of blasting thunder. But…water falling out of the sky is always a remarkable event, here in lovely uptown Arizona.

Well…I sure am glad M’jito and I are not on the road, traipsing traipsing traipsing to the Mayo Clinic on the far east side. I do hate that drive! Even when someone else is behind the steering wheel. Endless awful traffic.

Oh, my! Now we’re getting a wonderful TORRENT of rain pouring straight out of the sky. Wind, to the extent that there was any, has quit, and so the water is dropping into the yard and the pool, unmolested.

After 10 a.m. None of the babysitters my son has hired to ride herd on me have shown up. Thank the heavens!

Probably thank the rainy heavens… Driving through the traffic from those dreary eastside commuter suburbs where the women live is no fun under the best of circumstances. And believe me: you do NOT want to do that under pouring rain and blasting thunder.

Hmmm…a check of the storage cabinets and shelves shows we have plenty of food — dog & human — for the next several days. So we absolutely positively do NOT have to go out in that weather. 😀

Whenever it settles down, I’ll make a run on the Hispanic market to the north of us — a short, easy walk — and stock up on some more easily stored chow.

And Ruby and I should be set!