Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

…and WHERE did my marbles go????

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If there was ever any question of whether I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, we just resolved it.

For the love of GAWD! I just stumbled in the house after walking home from the shops down on the corner of Main Drag South and Lunatic Road West. Whatever was the MATTER with me that I betook myself on a safari like that????? In the freakin’ middle of the afternoon???!?

Whatever marbles I might have awakened with this morning apparently rolled out my ears by the time I took off on that expedition. When we say “stupid,” we mean STUPID.

Hey. All I wanted to do was go into my favorite cheap liquor store and buy a bottle of more-or-less palatable cheap white wine.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Even on a hot afternoon… Forgodsake, it’s only 105 out there just now. And for lovely uptown Arizona, that ain’t very hot.

Thought I was gunna DIE by the time I staggered in the front door!!! HOLEEE mackerel, is it hot out there!

Wunderground tells us it’s NOT that hot: only 102º….and no, for Arizona, that ain’t very hot. BUT….we’re also informed that we have 15% precipitation. And yeah…that is fairly damp for lovely uptown Phoenix.

Y’know….  If my son weren’t here, I’d be in San Francisco — where I belong — right this very minute.

And really: when my idiot parents decided to move to Sun City — dragging me into Arizona with them — I should have had enough sense to say Hell No I Won’t Go!!!!  And if I’d had that much brainpower, chances are very high that yes, I’d still be home in the Bay Area, whither my maternal relatives emanated.

But no. I didn’t have that much sense. And so now I’m paying the Stupidity Tariff. 

So…yeah. Where did my marbles go?

I dunno.

If I knew where they went, I would dig them out from under the bed…or wherever they rolled. But…they don’t seem to be there. 😮

Marbles….marbles…  Well, with them or without them: I hate Arizona!!! And if I could find a way — any way, anyhow — to get away from this place, by damn!  I surely would!

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again!

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Holeee maquerel! It’s just like freakin’ Saudi Arabia out there, on the shores of the horrible Persian Gulf! Hot, wet, gray, and SOGGY SOGGY SOGGY!

The Dawg and I just returned from our morning perambulation of the ‘Hood. Honest ta Gawd, I thought I was  gonna expire before we got back from that (not-very-lengthy) stroll! It’s hotter than Hell, wetter than an active shower stall, and…ENDLESS.

We finally stumbled back to the house. As we scribble, the dawg is trying to ingest about a gallon of water out of her bowl. I’m drenched in sweat and do not feel like getting up and throwing myself around preparatory to the arrival of a nuisance cleaning lady…oh, wait!  It says here we’re at SUNDAY! 

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! I’ve been imagining it was Monday!

Huh! Maybe I can persuade my poor son to come over to dinner. Or even take him out to a nice restaurant dinner….  He may have other ideas. But that’s OK. Can’t hurt to ask, eh?

If it’s raining, we won’t be grilling anything. Hmmmm….  What CAN we decoct? Pasta, probably: that’s always easy and usually edible.

EW! It’s supposed to reach 102 degrees today…at 45% humidity!  

Talk about feeling like Saudi Arabia. Horrible!

This is really unusual weather for Arizona, though. It’s VERY rarely this wet. What used to be routine in unlovely Saudi Arabia is essentially nonexistent here.

What a ghastly place to live that was. Can’t imagine how my poor mother survived nine unholy years in that gawdawful place. Her health wasn’t great to start with. But that my father would put her through a decade of misery like that…wow!  Was he mean, or was he just stupid?

Oh well. That was their problem. Today is my problem.

Pray, if you will, that the air-conditioning doesn’t go out today! 

😮

Hotter than the Hubs…Again!

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It’s not really THAT hot out there on the (un)lovely back porch. But it feels hotter than the proverbial Hubs. My guess is that’s because the air is just saturated: 37% humidity. 

Could that really mean that more than a third of the air we’re breathing is …water????

Possibly. It feels like (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where we lived on the shore of the (hot, soggy!) Persian Gulf. There, some mornings would be SO humid you’d wake up to a clear blue sky and see rain pouring down in front of your window.

Ugh!

We’re not that extreme. Yet. I hope. But it sure is nasty out there just now.

Thank gawd for central air-conditioning. Real air-conditioning, not the swamp-cooling we had out there. The machines we have here actually do dry out and cool the air before blasting it into the house.

And that makes a summer afternoon here almost tolerable. Assuming you don’t go outside…

Swampy Dampy Day

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Uch!  Just back from an attempted doggy-walk. That was a serious FAIL!!!

The air is thick with moisture….literally. Feels almost like you’re walking through Jell-O out there. No exaggeration!

The human needs to make a grocery-store run…but that ain’t gunna happen today,  not without a car. My dear son, as you recall, managed to confiscate the Dog Chariot, so I am stuck here in the ‘Hood, on foot, with no viable means of transport other than paying for a cab.

No, don’t even ask about the public (heh!) “transportation” here.

An Uber driver dwells across the street…but no, I’m not about to trot over to his house and lean on his doorbell at 7:30 in the morning.

You can arrange someone to deliver groceries. But that’s a pretty hilarious joke! Americans don’t eat decent food and they don’t cook. So when you ask some poor soul to pick up a pile of groceries on a list, you get…  Well… Something between har har and ugh! 

This leaves me with having to walk six or eight blocks (each way!) to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts or the Fry’s, or else trying to mooch a ride with a neighbor. Or paying through the schnozola to get a cabby to drive me back and forth.

At any rate, I ain’t about to walk to any of the local stores through this grim weather. So…hope for the best in the freezer! 😀

Lovely Sodden Walk!

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Ohhh, my goodness!  It’s SOOO HUMID out there — hideously reminiscent of sodden, ugly Saudi Arabia — that after a few blocks of idle strolling through the morning doggy-walk, I came back to the Funny Farm absolutely DRENCHED!

Drenched in sweat? Drenched in dew from the humidity?

Dunno. All I know is it’s hot, it’s wet, and I’m soaked from head to foot.

Walked past our new  friend Josie’s house: she of the recent homeowner’s disaster. She’s the one who moved into SDXB’s house after he moved to Sun City: the county actually gave it to her! It’s a very nice house…or…uhm…it was. As we passed, we saw all the carpeting pulled out and dumped, higgledy-piggledy, in the yard.

Yeah. A pipe under the kitchen sink sprang a leak. By the time Josie noticed it, water had POURED out and flooded the kitchen the  laundry room, the dining room, and the living room.

Basically, the house was ruined.

Presumably, though, Big Brother in all His taxpayer-funded generosity will cover the repairs. Sure hope Our Benefactors will buy her some new carpeting, too.

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This sort of thing leads me to wonder, every time some such fiasco occurs, if I should move somewhere else. Maybe where the houses are newer, or at least not so cheaply built? Maybe someplace further away from a dangerous, crime-ridden slum?

I dunno. Unless you decamp to Scottsdale, Fountain Hills, or Sun City, anywhere in Maricopa County is gonna bring you elbow-to-elbow with the high-crime set. And frankly….I’m just too lazy to pack up a four-bedroom shack and move 20 or 30 miles across the Valley. Nor do I want to end up that far from my son.

Yet…yeah, maybe I really should. 

But where would I go that I could afford and that would also take me away from the High Drama? And how, after all, could one live through the boredom without Tony the Romanian Landlord, all our pet burglars, the drag races six blocks to the north, the oglers and the rapists in the central park,…seriously! How boring!

No, as long as M’hijito stays in Central Phoenix, I’ll probably keep this shack. It IS a nice place, after all, with a gorgeous pool and overall pleasant neighbors and public transit coming out the wazoo and an outstanding regional hospital within walking distance. In many ways, it’s actually better than any other place I’ve ever lived.

{Bellyache Bellyache…}

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Migawd, those poor people who have to work outside in this UNHOLY heat and humidity. This morning it’s a swamp out there. And yeah, that’s the only way to describe it.

But as Ruby and I swam around the block through the soggy air, we came across one yard dude after another slamming around in this heat: pushing lawnmowers (or, if they were lucky, riding them), through heat and humidity thick enough float in. Horrible, horrible morning.

Walk in the door at 7:30 a.m. Ringy dingy ringy dingy ringy dingy…. Goddam phone solicitor!

Me to A**-hole, at high volume: GET OFF MY PHONE AND STAY OFF MY GOD-DAMNED PHONE!!!!!!

God, how I hate that. Really, I should disconnect the phone when I go to bed at night. But I’m afraid if some emergency comes up, M’hijito won’t be able to reach me. Or I may not be able to reach him.

Phone soliciting, though, really should be illegal. In these parts, though: far from it. Here, it’s a prison industry.

No kidding. When your phone jangles with a nuisance call, chances are there’s a convict on the other end of the line.

Even if he or she weren’t serving a term for some fun crime, I’d still rather not talk with them. Especially not over the phone. Especially not at 7:00 in the morning!