Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

Yuck! …and… WHY am I Here???

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Hot. Humid. Sticky. Feels almost like Arabia.

The park: overrun with early-morning dog-walkers, all trying to get the daily calisthenics out of the way before it gets seriously hot.

All these folks leave their IQ points at home when they take their dogs out. So, when you have an aggressive dog — especially one as cute as a corgi — you’re dodging morons to the right of you and morons to the left of you, all of them grinning stupidly and cooing Don’t worry! They just wanna pwaaayyy!”  Result: I get home plumb exhausted.

In the wintertime, I can wait an hour or so to take the dog out, meaning I miss the morning office-hour rush. But in the summer; forget about that. If you don’t get out the door before the sun is more than a few degrees above the horizon, you and the dog will be fricasseed by the time you get home.

***

This rumination led me to yet another tangent: Why am I staying here at all? 

SDXB moved to Sun City, there to join the beloved New Girlfriend. The two of them have been very happy out there, far as I can tell. My parents, who decamped to Sun City back in the 1960s (they moved there the minute they got me into college!), loved living there.

Still, my father would have been better off, later in his Sun City tenure, had he not remarried after my mother died. (And my mother would not have died had she not smoked herself into the grave…). But with those lessons in mind… set up and accept a few retirement realities for yourself. To wit:

  • Don’t be in any hurry to replace a dead or divorced spouse;
  • Buy a house with amenities comparable to your present castle (i.e., similar kitchen; about the same overall square footage — assuming you live in a modestly sized middle-class home;
  • Restrain yourself from installing a swimming pool;
  • Evade the grassy lawn;
  • Be sure the carport has a garage door;
  • Use Amazon and similar services to find and purchase the kind of household and personal items you’re used to buying;
  • Find a hobby or activity that will keep you busy several days a week — if at all possible, one that gives you some outdoor exercise;
  • Get used to having no privacy when you’re out in the yard;
  • Understand that you can’t, in any practical way, have a dog out there (no fences around the yards!);
  • Learn to golf…
  • Oh yeah: and don’t imagine you’re gonna get decent medical care. The doctors and medical facilities my parents encountered…oh my!!

Seriously: my mother would have died anyway of what ailed her, no matter who or what she had as a doctor. But she didn’t have to suffer the way she did. Not. At. All.

If you’re female and American, your problem with doctors is that too many American doctors presume you’re a neurotic hypochondriac. So when you go in with a real ailment, real symptoms, real signs of something serious going on…they just pat you on your pretty little head and go “there, there little girl…” No matter what your age, gender, or ethnicity, you need a doctor who will take you seriously. And in my experience, the quacks in Sun City did not — and presumably still do not — take women seriously.

So…there y’are: The main reason I don’t move to Sun City is that my son lives within a few miles of the Funny Farm and can ride herd on my eccentricities. The secondary reason is that you have a much better chance of finding a competent doctor in the center part of the city.

***

Another potential retirement destination is a large development over on the east side of the Valley, Fountain Hills. 

It’s a little tonier than Sun City: still middle-class, yet more upscale than the west-side tracts. But…as far as I can tell (and yes, I have inspected), the construction in Fountain Hills is no better than what you find in Sun City, and maybe not as good.

Fountain Hills poses other issues , some of them similar to Sun City’s, some unique unto itself.

For example, it’s not in the city. Neither is Sun City, which itself is a bland (one could say dreary) suburb.

Fountain Hills is right under the flight path to Sky Harbor Airport, a huge commercial lash-up where planes fly in at dawn and dusk…just when you’d like to sit outside and enjoy your coffee or your bourbon & water. Both tracts are blasted with noise on a regular basis…especially in the mornings and evenings. Sun City gets its morning serenade from Luke Air Force Base, which exercises its fighter jets right at dawn.

While Sun City is whitey-white (don’t even think of moving out there if you’re of the duskier persuasion), so is Fountain Hills. I don’t know for a fact that darker-skinned folks are also chased off from Fountain Hills…but I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s easy to find some indications that folks of the African-American persuasion might not be altogether comfortable in Fountain Hills. Far less easy to find indications of enthusiastic welcome….

So…uhm…to return to the fundamental question driving this post: Why am I here? 

Well, because there really isn’t anyplace better. Not here in the Valley of the Sun, anyway. Or for many leagues around it.

Hotter Than a Three-dollar Cookstove!

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LOL! That was one of my father’s favorite sayin’s, usually applied to a car — or to a warm afternoon. And as we lived out in Saudi Arabia, on the arid and fricaseeing shores of the Persian gulf, it was often a particularly germane folk phrase.

He grew up in Texas, though in fact he had been born and partly raised in the deep, DEEP South. So I reckon it’s within reason to guess that turn of phrase could have come out of the South rather than Texas.

Hm. Apparently there’s a version, “hotter than a two-dollar pistol,” that refers to a car — especially a Corvette. But the folk phrase seems to have been born in the Deep South or the Wild West.

Welp, hereabouts the three-dollar cookstove has been simmering away all day long. The sky is overcast and hotter than a by-gawd. 😀

Seriously: for an Arizonan, a cloudy day that’s also HOT signifies a visit to Hell. And that’s just what we have this afternoon: Middling-low cumulus clouds floating in hot, almost damp air. I’d say it was strictly for the birds, but just now the birds have disappeared, presumably taking cover under any shade they can find.  Just now, Wunderground tells us the afternoon’s temperature is 101 degrees, with a 24% of rain.

Hm. Could be, could be… We shall see, in due course. 

And speakin’ of real estate…

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…as we were saying yesterday, briefly, Zillow claims my li’l middle-class house is worth (hang onto your hat) $563,000!  And change.

What????????

Over half a million dollars for an aging tract house within walking distance (easy walking distance) of a dangerous slum? Seriously????

And horrors!

****

I return to the idle thought that maybe I ought to think about moving out to Scottsdale — more specifically, to the district known as McCormick Ranch. Once a very fancy-Dan tract, McCormick ranch is now a mid- to upper-middle-class suburb, filled with ticky-tacky construction set in seas of Bermuda grass. The area is relatively safe. Of course, no place in a big city is “safe,” but McCormick Ranch is far more so than the swaths of North Phoenix that border the alarming Sunnyslope tract, where I live now.

This proposition presents its challenges. The main one: I very much doubt I could get anywhere near that much for this house. And houses out in Scottsdale are pricier by far than the ones here in North Central on the edge of Sunnyslop.

To get into Scottsdale housing, I’d probably have to move into an apartment. And I don’t wanna.  I love my house and all its roominess. I love my swimming pool — my pool and no one else’s. I love the trash pickup service from the alleys. None of these appertain to apartment living.

And another important adjunct to this issue:  unless there’s something I’m misunderstanding, it doesn’t look like it would be worth moving unless I could get into a better area.

McCormick Ranch is not a better area than North Central Phoenix. The two districts are about on a par. Fairly affluent. Relatively low in crime. Close to upscale shopping. Attractively built middle-class homes. Decent schools. Sooo….

Why would I want to live there? 

* It’s ten minutes from the endlessly importuning Mayo Clinic. The gawdawful drives to see MayoDoc would go away, once and for all.

* Shopping is excellent, ranging from the high side of middle class to the high side of very much upper middle class.

* Proximity to lots of great restaurants.

But…but…waitminit here. 

* I don’t go to restaurants. I can cook lots better than that…for lots less change!

* These days I do about 75% of my clothes shopping online.

* I should base where I’m gonna live on the proximity of a doctor’s office? Uhhhh… don’t think so…

* The Ranch is a long way from my son’s neighborhood. If I moved out there, I’d hardly ever see him!

* I dunno if the Cleaning Lady from Heaven would be willing to drive way to Hell & Gone to clean the Funny Farm if it were in North Scottsdale.

***

Hmmmmm….  To my mind, the “Waitaminits” outweigh the benefits by about ten to one. Seriously: there aren’t enough positives to convince me that I should pull up (expensive!) stakes and move to the far side of Scottsdale.

So…one is led to apply that Fine Old Saw: When in doubt, don’t!

  • Doubt, indeed. There’s just not enough there to persuade me that I would benefit from moving. Benefit: in any way…
  • Socially (I know one! person who lives out there.)
  • Financially (Any benefit from moving to a tonier area will be outweighed by the costs of selling, buying, fix-up, and moving.)
  • Comfort-wise (My house is a luxurious palace; noplace on McCormick Ranch is any better, and most are not as good.)
  • Gasoline and mileage savings (I probably drive out to the Mayo Clinic no more than once a month. That’s hardly a motive to pull up stakes!)

So unless my son decides to move someplace else — say, he gets a job in another city — there’s really no reason for me to even consider buying a place in McCormick Ranch.

If he did move out of North Central Phoenix, I might move out, too. Either to follow him or to put some distance between me and the gangs. But as long as he’s in these parts…well, so am I!

Corner of Hell and Hades….

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HOOleee keerap!

It was hot when I left the Albertson’s to walk home with a small armful of groceries. My GOD what torture! I hafta tellya…

For sure:  I’ll never buy groceries at that Albertson’s again. As we scribble, it’s 115 in the shade of the back porch. Wunderground says it’s 116.  Out in the middle of an asphalt road, no shelter anywhere to be seen? EASILY 120…very probably more than that

I have never walked through such gawdawful heat…and I grew up in Saudi Arabia, where a 115-degree day was normal.

Today all I wanted was a six-pack of beer and a bottle of white wine. That notwithstanding, the bags weighed more than I wanted to haul through that heat. Asked the clerk if it was OK to borrow a cart and bring it back in the morning.

Well. No. 

So…will I be shopping at Albertson’s again?

Well. No.

Nope. Never again!

A grocery cart typically costs a couple hundred bucks. I can spend that much in a typical trip to a grocery store. Let’s say I make two such trips a month… Today Albertson’s traded $200 for a $400/month loss. For a year’s worth of shopping, that’s $400 x 12, or $4800.

Mighty fancy grocery carts y’got there, Mr. Albertson!

EGAD!

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Holee doggerel! Temps here are supposed to hit 117 today. Nice and cozy, eh?

Ruby the Corgi and I were out the door by 7 a.m. or so…and it didn’t seem any hotter than usual. Maybe it’s just that for most humans, our version of “no hotter than usual” is the same as “too damn hot”…  😀

Let’s bestir ourself to stumble out to the back porch and check the thermometer…  hmmm…. only 100 degrees. Sorry folks: that’s just not all THAT hot.

A little warm, maybe, for 9:11 in the morning. But not THAT hot. Gimme a break!

It is, however, a bit humid. Damp enough to be reminiscent of (un)lovely Ras Tanura, where I grew up on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Yea verily: Saudi Arabia was hotter (and wetter) than the hubs of Hades, not a place normal humans would choose to dwell. But…that was all the time, not just a day or two in the depths of a hellish summer.

And usually, the yak-festers here are not kidding when they say “it’s a dry heat.” When the atmosphere is just plain parched, a hundred degrees doesn’t seem intolerably hot.

Fellow dog-walkers this morning were whining and squawking about (ooooohhh eeeeeek!!!!!!) a terrifying coyote strolling up one of the neighborhood streets. The sheer horror, eh?

What IS the matter with people? Are they really so stupid that they don’t know all they have to do is turn around, glare and the beast, and holler “GIT!!!! B-a-a-a-a-d Dawg! GIT OUTTA HERE!” and the savage person-eating monster will turn right around and run away?

And yes, I do speak from experience.

Don’t know which is the most annoying experience: a confused coyote or a doltish human.

Ohhh well.

At any rate: yes, 117 degrees is passing warm. Hope the AC system holds up through the day. Hmm…  This is Wednesday…so if it doesn’t crap out between now and, say, 2:00 or 4:00 p.m., we should be OK. The repairmen should be out in force, so we won’t have much trouble getting someone to fix it, if need be.

After mid-afternoon, the atmosphere will start to cool a bit: not into the bearable range, but usually into the survivable range.

Meanwhile, we have a predicament: I lost my bicycle the other day.

In a moment of senility, I took it into my graying head to hop on my beloved bike and ride around the area. Stupidly crossed Central Avenue, cruised the upscale area around the parochial high schools over there, and ended up socializing with some neighbor on her front porch.

By the time we broke up that chat-fest, it was getting so hot she thought I should not ride home by myself. So we called my son. He showed up, piled me in his car, and…heh…we both forgot about my bike. 

Well. So I think.

I believed we brought it back here. But it’s not in the garage. And that tells you how fried my brain was.

The other possibility is that M’hijito took it to his house and locked it in his garage, to block me from taking off for any more two-wheeled fugues. Once again, he seems not to be speaking to me, so I dunno whether the bike is at his place or not.

But…if in fact I’ve LOST the bike, there’s a big store right across Main Drag West that sells the things. So I may just walk over there and buy a new bicycle.

Or not. Seems like more work than it’s worth, in this infernal heat. 😀

The city has had to close down all the local hiking trails, in the face of the normal stupidity of humans.

No joke: in 117-degree heat, the local cretins WILL go out in that desert and stumble around the rocky, often steep trails.

Don’tcha wonder how the human species has managed to survive this long?

Back!!(wards…)

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WHY does the Cleaning Lady do this????  No matter how many times she’s been here — and it’s been dozens & dozens — she invariably installs the roll of kitchen towels backward.

EVERY TIME. Backward: no matter what.

😀

I like paper towels to unroll over the top, with the loose end coming toward the user. This, to me, is the easy way to access them, and the least wasteful (because you have easy control over how many sheets peel toward you off the roll).

Luz, on the other hand, has other ideas. She installs the towels so they unroll away from the user, toward the wall where the towel holder is hanging. This, IMHO, is a PITA.  😀

Every time she’s here, she puts the towels in backward. Every time she leaves, I re-install them to fit my taste in paper-towel rolling. Every time she returns, she re-re-installs them backward.

{OOOOOh geez! Pool Dude just walked in, triggering a frenzy of Dog Joy. WHY does this dog love that man so much???}

He’s already done! Man! That guy does a job in 10 or 15 minutes that takes me half an hour or 40 minutes. And he does it about ten times better than I can.

My, how Ruby adores that man! And I have to say, given all the hassles he spares me, I’m in love, too!

{sigh} He just hyper-chlorinated the drink. So I won’t be jumping in there to cool down from the morning’s Dog Safari. But that’s OK…at least I don’t have to mess with toxic quantities of chlorine.