Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

Chaos in Hevvin…

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Well… {ahem}…one wouldn’t exactly call Conduit of Blight Boulevard “Heaven.” But it’s not too bad, as Phoenix-area main drags go.

Apparently some new catastrophe has taken place, though, amid the fine rush-hour traffic. Sirens have been yowling up and down Blight Blvd for the past half-hour. Probably a moron drove or stepped out in front of a train.

Conduit of Blight is one of the main routes for the accursed light-rail road-blocks….uhm, “trains.” They get in the way of everything and slow traffic on the main drags inexcusably.

This being Arizona — Home of the Rabid Driver — morons dart around the things and out in front of them and…HOOOlleee mackerel! You wanna talk about traffic hazards? Egad!!

That’s why I won’t drive on 19th Avenue, Camelback, or Central Avenue: not  along any stretch where the accursed light-rail trains run. Those fine politically correct conveyances have turned all of those main drags into clogged messes.

This adds considerably to the congestion and the frustration factor. Basically, to keep from tearing out all your hair, you have to drive anywhere from half-a-mile to a full mile out of your way to avoid the tangles along CofB .

Hmmmm… Speaking the local road-morons…someone just cruised up the alley behind our backyard. Sounded like they stopped at the trash cans or nearby. So…did they dump their trash outside my gate (again)? Fill up the freshly emptied garbage can with a gigantic pile of debris (again)?

Can’t tell by peering over the wall.

And so…awayyyyyyy!

Nope! If they dumped it in any of the other trash cans, it wasn’t here.

And speaking of trash accumulation:

Arizonans are now required to replace their (perfectly valid…) driver’s licenses with a new annoyance called a “Real ID.”

Jayzus Aitch Keeeerist! If the card with  your photo on it, acquired by taking a test and standing in line a good 40 minutes, does not suffice to show you’re who you say you are, then NOW what is?

***

That notwithstanding…

It’s an incredibly BEAUTIFUL day. Clear, with a few fluffy, cottony clouds drifting overhead, and cool.

Yea verily, I’m even thinking of getting off my duff and trekking around the nearby North Mountain Park.

Maybe.

But maybe not. The last couple of times I went hiking up there alone…well… I swore never to do that again. At one point I had to dodge down into an arroyo, tuck my  bright blue backpack underneath me and lie down on it, and pray the jerk who started following me didn’t see where I went after I ran around a bend.

No kidding. The guy stood on the trail a good ten or fifteen minutes, scanning the landscape and altogether too obviously searching for me.

{sigh} This is why every woman needs a German shepherd…

Ohhh How I Wanna Go Home!

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Lookee here!  This — yea, verily: this very property — IS the Ranch. The beloved, endlessly missed Gold Bar.

Rustic, eh?

But oh, my… So pretty. So quiet. The air so clean. The cows so mellow. The little ranch house so sweet.

No, it wasn’t really “home,” at least not for us. Maybe for our ranch manager and his wife. But we were city slickers, up in Yarnell for the occasional weekend.

Still, I would’ve loved for it to be “home.” Not a chance, though. We didn’t have enough net worth to buy the property — neither did any of the law partners. And what on earth would we, a pair of city kids, do with umpty-thousand acres in the middle of nowhere?

Just wanna go back, though.

Real Estate…Run Amok!

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!Jayzuz!!!  Just look at the INSANE prices for houses in our old neighborhood! Just a few lots down the street from our place: $1.3 MILLION.

We paid 30 grand for our house there — the first home we co-owned with a bank — and thought that was just outrageous. Lookit that, for 1900 square feet! Our house was 3,300 square feet…

These shacks are all within walking distance of our old house:

Good lord!!

Well, I guess I’m damn lucky to have this house up in a North Central district. And to have it paid off. By the time we’re ready to sell it, the thing will be worth enough to purchase the moon.

Actually, I hope I’m able to stay here until I croak over. Then M’jihito will get the house — and presumably the proceeds of its sale — which will allow him either to pay off his own house or to sell it and move into my paid-off shack. Or to move wherever he pleases.

Not sure he even wants to stay in the Phoenix area. He’s talked about moving back to Grand Junction, Colorado, whence his father emanated. It’s a little hickish for my taste…but if he could get this kind of money on the sale of my house and his, he could live like a king there.

So…???

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Okayyy… After that fine system crash, let’s amuse ourselves by seeing whether Funny (via Firefox) will reboot…

{scribble scribble}
{Save Draft}

hmmmm

WordPress’s “Page Setup” looks funny…but…but… I dunno…it kinda looks like the site is online and…MAAAYYYBEEE it’s gonna work…

*****

Reminiscing and daydreaming about the Good Ole Days living in our beautiful mid-town Phoenix Encanto neighborhood.

  • Our house was so pretty.
  • Our neighbors were so fine.
  • The central location was so handy and dandy.
  • The burglars and wannabe rapists swarmed in such merry abundance…

I do miss it. But on the other hand…I don’t miss it. 😀

Cruising the real estate ads…gosh, here are all these beautiful old houses. Our friends Jan and Ed’s place!! Zowie!

It was a pretty house to begin with. After they’d been in it for awhile, though, it was freaking gorgeous.

Wonder what our old place looks like, now that several passels of yuppies have spent time in it… It, too, was freaking gorgeous — that was a good 20+ years ago.

Those houses are selling in the million-dollar range now. THAT, you may be sure, is something you couldn’t get here in my present tony neighborhood.

Hmmm….  Frankly..,.

I loved the house and I miss it. But I don’t miss…

* The traffic noise
* The airplane noise (we get about as many planes here, but the Encanto district was much closer to the airport than we are, so our noisemakers are higher overhead)
* The panhandlers
* The burglars
* The sirens from the two nearby regional hospitals
* The sirens from the fire station the accursed city installed right behind us
* The third-rate public schools, making private school tuition NOT a choice
* The ancient, rickety plumbing

Hmmmm…  Money doesn’t buy common sense, eh?

😀

Drivin’…Drivin’…Drivin…

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Had to cruise through the district called Moon Valley y’day. It’s a sub-suburb of the North Phoenix area. A dear friend and her husband — both now Late with a capital “L” — used to live there… I drove past their house, which, amazingly enough, is still standing.

“Amazingly,” I say, because the architecture up there is SUCH sh!t…it really is hard to believe those places remain upright. 😀

What junk. At the time my friends moved in, I went up to do some repairs and upgrades — yes, my daddy DID teach me how to use a hammer, a screwdriver, and a paint brush. And I was just astonished at the pi$$-poor construction. The walls and floors were such cardboard that when you stood there painting, barefooted, you could feel the heat radiating into the structure a good three feet along the exterior walls and into the living room. You don’t even wannna know what their summer power bills must have been!

Still…despite the junk building, it’s kind of a pretty area: upper-middle-class, neat and tidy, nestled in among the desert hills.

Drove all over the tract, wondering if I’d like to sell the Funny Farm and move up there.

And…well…the answer is No. Not on your life!

While my house isn’t exactly Buckingham Palace, it’s nevertheless reasonably sturdy. Centrally located. Almost within walking distance of my son’s house. Absolutely walking distance to an Albertson’s supermarket, a beloved Sprouts fancy-Dan overpriced grocery store, a storefront doctor’s office, and a train line that would take you to the ultra-beloved AJ’s market and to the kid’s house, if you had the patience to deal with Phoenix’s public transit.

{sigh} I do miss my friends, though. They were a good 20 years older than me, so it’s not surprising that they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. But gosh. They were fun and smart and full of ginger!

Why can’t humans live forever?

Good (not quite) Morning, Arizona!

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Ugh! It’s all of 11:30 at night — not quite: 11:26, to be precise — and the cops are buzzing the suburb just to the north of us, hollering down at the perps through a loudspeaker. Good Morning, America, eh?

That district is a high-crime area. Every now and again, yet another chase ensues up there. This could be entertaining, if it were not so common that it’s become routine.

Ruby is quiescent, so presumably whoever they’re after hasn’t made it down into the ‘Hood yet. If the cops don’t catch him, though, he will — pretty quick.

Grrrrrr! I am NOT in the mood to be kept awake by cops-&-robbers antics. Enjoying a little ailment that’s making me quite uncomfortable — whenever the doctors’ offices open tomorrow, I’ve gotta call one of them and make an appointment. It would help a lot if I could get a few hours’ sleep tonight.

Doesn’t sound like that’s gonna happen, though.

Let’s see what the “police incidents” page sez…

Helle’s belles! Here’s a shooting at  a Walmart. Apparently the perp took off… But it doesn’t look like this is our current boy: that episode took place around 5:00 p.m. It’s almost midnight now.

Welp…there’s always something going on up there. Keeps life interesting.

I guess…