Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

Icky-Sticky Day!

by

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

by

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

by

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!

Swampy-Dampy Day!

by

Ruby just dragged her human back into the house, after a circumnavigation of the ‘Hood. Gosh!  What an icky morning!

Be glad — be very glad — that you don’t have to work outside in Arizona’s heat and humidity. It is just sticky out there right now.

Ohh well. Ruby and I successfully traipsed around the neighborhood, with little ill effect. Wunderground says we’re enjoying 56% humidity…egad! Does that REALLY mean more than half the air out there is water?

😀  Hope not. But sorta suspect that’s the case. We have 81 degrees with rain showers predicted for this morning.

What, dear Gawd, is on the calendar for today? (Gets up and traipses back to the office…)

Nothing! Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

Hmmm…it’s Sunday. Thank goodness I no longer have to get up, throw on some decent clothes, and fly down to the church to sing half the morning.

No kidding: I do miss the choir. A lot. But on a day like this, I’m mighty glad not to have to go out into the traffic and the weather.

….ohhh goodie! Just to make the morning, my son sends an email reminding me that we’re traipsing out to the Mayo Clinic (again!!!!!!) tomorrow morning. 

Boyoboy, could I do without those junkets! No doubt he feels even more strongly about that: the Mayo is a good 40-minute drive from here, meaning a trip out there and an hour wasted talking to doctor about essentially nothing consumes half his working day. And since he’s contrived to get my driver’s license negated, he ends up having to drive me out there.

To me, it feels like such a waste of time. (Imagine how it feels for him!!) Their doctors never have anything to say that makes the slightest bit of difference for my condition….whatever that condition may be. They seem to have no clue. Basically, they’re charging me for getting old.

Makes Christian Science look better and better….

Ditch the Class Snobbery! I’M IN LOVE!!

by

O…M…G… I just got a wonderful whack upside the head!

Did you read yesterday’s FAM post?  OINK, we say. Lady! Come down out of your classist eagle’s nest!!!

Okay…. Eventually I quit sitting here going oink oink oink and resigned myself to having to walk up to the (muy hispanico) corner at Main Drag West and Conduit of Blight North.

Trudge through the steamy heat and arrive in a classic corner shopping center. Barge into the El Rancho supermarket. Grab a cart and stroll around. And…

And…gosh.

I like this place!

Damned if it doesn’t have all the kinds of things I like to eat and to cook — bein’ WT myself, I guess, I fit right in. The staff: quiet, nice folks. The other shoppers: damned if they’re not my kinda people!

Suddenly, I’m NOT outside my social class…as is invariably the case at the ritzy AJ’s or the upscale Albertson’s.

I’m walkin’ around in there and thinking, “This ain’t real. IS it?”

But….yeah: it IS real. 

For the first time in I don’t know HOW long, I feel…where I belong. And that is not where everyone around me is better than me…

What fun! Omigawd! I felt like I’d gone home!

Gosh. I wish I’d found that place sooner…like when I first moved into the neighborhood, 87 gerjillion years ago.

Classism lives, folks!

Another Icky-Sticky Day

by

Need to walk(!) down to the nearest supermarket to restock supplies. But… At 7:30 in the morning it’s pushin’ 80 degrees out there. And overcast! In Arizona, that makes for a hot and sticky morning.

Ohhhh how do I not feel like trudging down there?

Actually, there’s a closer supermarket-like affair in the corner commerce just to the north of us. But they target Latino shoppers from the mercado just to the north of us. Not a bad store, but they stock items that I would never buy, and don’t stock items that I regularly use.

Walking down to the Albertson’s will entail dodging through the neighborhood — adding steps on steps — in order to avoid the sh!theads on 19th Avenue who scream obscenities out their car windows at every passing woman. Even a doddering old bat!

Guess they’re so stupid they think that’s funny. I don’t: I think it’s damned annoying.

There isn’t an easy way to reach either of the corner shopping centers on foot from the neighborhood. Because several tracts built at different times stand between here and those markets, you pretty much HAVE to walk down Main Drag West to get to the stores.

The prospect of doing so in melting heat and sticky humidity does not appeal.

Nope. Not a-tall.

Ay, señors y señoras! I do believe we’ll be shopping latino today. That (mostly) Mexican supermarket carries about everything I really need, and it also has some fun stuff to experiment with. And it’s only about a ten-minute walk to the north of us. It would help a lot if I’d contrived to make myself fluent in Spanish during all the years I’ve lived in the American Southwest. But…never too late, eh?

In fact, maybe it would be worth taking a year of introductory Spanish at one of the community colleges here. If I could figure out how to get a ride to said institution.

Hmmmm….  This is innaresting:
https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/review

Since I’m fluent in French and can stumble around in Italian, an online course in Spanish just might do the trick. Bet I could learn enough to navigate the local commerce.

Yeah. Absolutely. It’s past time to learn Spanish!