Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

Yipes!

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It’s 10:41 p.m., pouring rain: The power went out a few minutes ago. The Internet is out…and I mean OUT out. Not a single site comes up, including Funny about Money.  (I’m drafting this in Word.)

How exactly the Web works escapes me. But…uhmmmmm…I didn’t think it depended on a local power source. Google is not in Arizona, to say nothing of not in the Phoenix area. Wunderground may be in Phoenix, but Funny about Money sure ain’t. NOTHING comes up on the Internet.

This means I have no way of making a phone call, come to think of it. Well…I do have the iPhone, but am not about to stumble around the house finding it and then to dork with it to see if it works. Just hope for the best if it’s actually needed.

Without the AC or even a table fan, it’s hotter than hell in the house, and muggy.

Sirens are wailing….sounds like an ambulance or some other emergency vehicle headed toward John C. Lincoln hospital.

HOLEE maquerel! It hasn’t rained like this in years!

Hang in there, Little Roof. This is not the time to decide to leak.

Hope Josie is OK. Last I heard from her, that house – the place SDXB vacated when he ran away in terror from Tony the Romanian Gangster…uhm…Landlord – needed a new roof. I believe she had someone there patching it.

Hmmmm… A pickup just pulled up in front of Tony’s Home for Juvenile Delinquents…probably the Proprietor himself. This would make a good opportunity for one of the li’l darlin’s to make their escape. Or, more likely, for some kid to simply freak out. It is a WILD li’l storm.

And the Thunder Rolls…

and rolls…

and rolls …

and rolls….

That pool is gonna be a wreck. Hmmmm…today is Wednesday. Pool Dude comes on Mondays.

…Not…Good….

LOL! Here’s something weird! Even though the Internet connection seems to be Lost & Gone Forever, the games site that I left up last night when I went to bed is still working! [https://games.washingtonpost.com/en-us/games/word-wipe]

Wait! No…it’s not. Apparently it will let you play a game that’s in progress…it must download some data into your computer when you log on. But once that game is over, then it IS  “game over”… 😀

*******

4:47 a.m.

Well. That was quite the little freshet.

A preliminary reconnoiter reveals nowhere near as much damage as expected. The pool, amazingly enough, is not a disaster area. Didn’t spot any broken trees or limbs in the yard…though admittedly, I didn’t look closely on the west and south sides.

There will be a fair amount of damage in the ‘Hood, but with any luck, little of it will be in my yard. Not much on the local Play-Gnus…just a few stories going oooh look, the wind is blowing eeeeek eek climate change! Actual reporting evidently went out with the covered wagon.

Hmmmm…  The dog has gone back to sleep. Maybe I can catch a few extra Z’s, too….

Report from Hades North…

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As we scribble — 8:16 p.m. — it’s dark outside and 105 degrees on the back porch.

Yea verily, a balmy Arizona evening. Humidity seems a little lower than it was yesterday. That’s good in that dry air creates the illusion that the heat is lower than it is. And bad in that it fries everything in sight and probably fries any budding rain clouds within a hundred miles.

Ruby and I have loafed all day. We did get out around 5 a.m. for a (warm!) early-morning doggy-walk.

Looks like my li’l gecko escaped a watery demise in the pool. While I was swimming this a.m., I found him clinging to the tiles on the deep end. Couldn’t see any way to catch him and lift him up onto the Cool-Deck without…well, killing him. So swam away and tried to dismiss the little guy from my thoughts.

This evening, by golly, there he is, ambling up a wall in the shade of the patio lattice.

Well. I hope it’s him, anyway, and not one of his cousins. He’s very, extremely, radically cute, with his funny little ultra-miniature dinosaur feet and his elegant serpentine tail. What critters God makes!

And now it’s 80 degrees here in the “guest” bedroom — the re-envisioned TV room that was decked out with a twin bed after free TV was taken away from us. No…I will not pay to watch the schlock pumped at us from commercial TV. You can get the best of what’s available in the U.S. — i.e., PBS News, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News (if you can stomach it, after the current revelations), and a few PBS dramas — off the Internet. BBC adds nicely to that…all of it for free.

Here’s the Entertainment of the Day: the Republicans idiotically scheme to try to impeach Biden because they don’t like his son’s behavior. Brillyant, eh?

Godlmighty. This current gang makes me feel embarrassed ever to have been a Republican. Betcha Barry would have jumped ship by now, if he were still kickin’.

Gosh, how many hours I spent in this room, lounging in a big overstuffed chair while grading papers in front of the (free!) television. {sigh}

Now the TV set is long gone. My son has that nice chair. And the TV cabinet serves as an armoir to hold blankets and junk.

The house’s air conditioner is laboring away to keep the temp down to 80 degrees. Pray it doesn’t crap out!

In-Effing-Credible….

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Whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever you have to do, it HAS to be the hard way!

LOL!

This morning I wanted to run by the grocery store to pick up an extension cord for the laptop and, while I was at it, replenish the pantry a bit. Visits to two huge supermarkets yielded NO extension cord. But I did find one at the neighborhood Albertson’s, my very least favorite place to shop because of the shady adventures in the parking lot. I head for the check-out with that and a bottle of cheap white…and am told…

Nope.

No. No, I cannot buy a bottle of wine.

Why? Because it’s Sunday morning. In Arizona, it’s illegal to sell alcoholic beverages of any kind before noon on Sunday. Holy holy holeeeeee….

Shee-ut!!! I’d forgotten about that!

Furious, I walked out and left the other stuff I’d intended to buy — admittedly not much, but if I have to go to some other store or shop at some other time, why should I stand in line at a cash register twice?

Aren’t you happy, don’t you feel privileged to have sanctimonious Kris-tee-anns looking out for your morals?

It’s 11:34 now. In another 20 minutes, I’ll set out for AJ’s, where I’druther fork over my money, if fork over I must. The only reason I didn’t drive down there this morning was that I do not feel like shopping and I just wanted to get the damned errand-running over with.

In another fine snafu, apparently American Express never received this month’s payment. Got a threatening collection letter from them.

Called. They have THE best customer service people! Talked at length with a sweetie-pie who has an exotic accent. Got that straightened out. They’re forgiving the late charge; first thing tomorrow morning I will head over to the credit union and get that bill paid electronically.

I still haven’t seen the bill. Don’t see it anywhere around the Funny Farm. Probably it got delivered to the neighbor who got SDXB’s house when the City bought it and gave to them (yes: FREE!) after the new airport runway displaced them. That address has the same street number, but a one-word difference in the streets’ name — like Neighborhood Lane vs. Neighborhood Road. Stuff is misdelivered all the time. I have to mark on orders from Amazon “ROAD, please, not Lane!” Otherwise, they take stuff to her and I never see it.

Bein’ from a totally different socioeconomic world, she and her family don’t forward misdelivered packages or mail. If it’s mail, they just throw it in the trash. If it’s a package, they apparently keep it for themselves.

Interesting how customs differ, even within a given country.

Welp…in another 20 minutes, God will allow me to buy a bottle of dinner wine. So I might as well get started traipsing down to AJ’s.

Despatch from the Hubs of Hades

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As we scribble — 5:40 of a balmy early evening — the thermometer nestled under the slatted patio cover and amongst the leaves of the hefty potted ficus tree reads 115 degrees.

Consider, for a moment, how much cooler that is than the temp out in the direct sunlight.

Eeeek!

The AC, pounding along all afternoon, has managed to bring down the thermometer in the coolest room in the house to a chilly 81 degrees.

The Wunderground crew is not optimistic about prospects for moderation in the near future. They seem to think these fine balmy temperatures will last at least until the end of this week.

ohhhh gooodie!

It’s been a good ten or twelve years since we last had a weather adventure like this.

The worrisome thing, in my precincts, is that the air-conditioning in my son’s house doesn’t work well. It’s an old red brick house, very pretty and quaint and all…but hey…we don’t need no steeenking insulation! Even with the AC blasting full-on, the thing can’t cool the house especially well.

I’m inviting him to come over and sleep here, if he likes. But knowing my son — a superb and proud example of Maleness and Paleness — he likely will demur.

Burned my feet in the few seconds it took to run out, grab the backyard hose, and spray water on the potted plants. Ouch!

Otherwise, it’s been a pretty slow news day…probably because one can’t get up much mischief in weather like this.

The stuff the eye doc told me to use on my own marginally infected/irritated/lwhatever-the-heck eyes — a liquid called iVisia, works — lo!! — on the dog’s dry, red eyes too!

The vet had told me to wipe her eyes with a wet rag. But when the eye doc came up with this stuff, I dared to think…hmmm….Why not?

And indeed, wiping her eyes with a tissue impregnated with those eye drops really DOES work. Which the water treatment does not… This evening she’s much better than she was yesterday.

And so am I…eye-wise, that is.

Burned the soles of my feet walking over the Kool-Deck bare-footed. Apparently “Kool” is not what you get when the stuff is baked all day under a broiling sun! 😮

Natcherly, too, I pick a season with one of the hottest days on record to let my hair grow long. BRIL-lyant! As if it weren’t hot enough in here without a freakin’ fur collar around my neck.

It’s not long enough to pull up or to clip back. So…yeah: fur collar.

The AC is still set for 78. Here in the coolest room in the house, the thermometer continues to insist it’s 81.

Ohhhhh well…that’s a helluva lot better than 112.

I guess.

A Balmy Evening…

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…for the balmy, that is…  At 7:10 p.m. the thermometer on the back porch reads 109 degrees.

Hey! Ya can’t shovel heat!

Nary a sign of the summer rainstorms known in these parts as “monsoons.”

But it’s still a bit early for them. I think of monsoon as an August phenomenon. F’rhevvinsake, it’s only July 17.

These are the times that make the humans think 12 months of swimming-pool expenses are soooooo worth it! 😀 Into the drink this afternoon. Hop out. Shampoo hair in the hose. Return to the shack’s interior, where the AC system labors to hold the temp (in the coolest part of the house: the hallway) down to 80.

What a day!

Started with Ruby flushing Ratty out of the marjoram bed. Dayum! She almost caught the poor critter!

Later on: the Great Termite Project.

Exterminator came by. He didn’t think the infestation was too bad…yet. He sprayed the little gals where they were evident, and then laid down one helluva barrier all around the house’s foundation. I decided we should have him come back at regular intervals to harass the critters. Whenever the weather cools some, I’ll try to get him up into the attic (you’d have to be suicidal to go up there in this heat!). He didn’t think the girls have invaded there yet…he did show me where he believes them to be, and provided a pretty convincing argument to that effect.

We didn’t see the much-beloved Pool Dude this morning — Monday is his day to come around. We probably missed him while we were indulging in the dawn doggy-walk. The pool is positively pristine this evening, which it assuredly would NOT be, in this heat, had he not surfaced at some point today.

Wait, I know how to tell: did he retrieve the new pump pot filter basket I bought?

Checking….

Whoa!!! He did NOT!

Holee mackerel! That means His Cuteness never surfaced here today!

He must have had car trouble. Or the world collapsed on his head.

Fortunately, he’s done such a killer job on maintenance over the past few months that the damn thing looks clear and clean. So from a selfish point of view, that’s good. But..gosh…  I hope he’s OK…

Back to the subject of infestation: The roof rats are back.

One of them was actually brave enough this morning to shoot right across in front of me.

Cute little fellas. Too bad they carry such nasty diseases. Too bad they do rather more damage than one would like to cope with.

So I set out the traps. When last checked, they were no more successful than they’ve been in the past. But…that was checking their daytime performance. We shall see, come morning, how they worked during our little tenants’ night-time maneuvers.

Awwwww crapola: Cop copters buzzing around overhead.

Check that all the doors are locked. And…hooleee shee-ut! The front screen was NOT locked.

Ohhh well. Now we’re barricaded in: two deadbolts engaged on every exterior door.

Four-legged rats. Two-legged rats. Six-legged rats. What a place we live in!

WHY….?????

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Does EVERY GODDAM THING happen AT ONCE?

Holee mackerel!

It’s not even 6:30 in the morning and already I’ve had to deal with a new rat infestation; with a sick, angry, scared dog; and a new plumbing leak…UNDER the side deck!

Won’t be able to get the plumber on the phone for two or three hours.

Meanwhile, it’s hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there: Hot and Wet with a Vengeance.

Oh, and to frost those cookies? It’s Cleaning-Lady Day!

Arrrrghhhhhhhh!  I know this sounds callously ungrateful, but Cleaning-Lady Day drives me nuts…especially when everything else is going to Hell on the Proverbial Handcart. It means the Mess has gotta be picked up — fortunately there isn’t much mess this week.

Except of course that Ruby and I have been sleeping in the middle bedroom, because it’s right under the AC unit and so is the only halfway cool room in the house. That will confound her… Now I’ll have to explain why that bed is a mess — and, I remind myself, find a set of clean twin-sized sheets. If there is one. Since I don’t use that bed much, I prob’ly don’t have two sets. 😮

That will add ANOTHER layer of hassle: strip that bed, wash the sheets, and get them dry before she gets here. gaaaahhhhhhhh!

Meanwhile, I step out to the west side porch to start setting rat traps around the yard, and LO!

Water all over Satan’s do-it-yourself deck.

Since that thing is an amateur job (a pretty good job, but still….), that means the deck will now have to be repaired or replaced. Ohhhhhhh gooodie!

Someone seems to have pulled out all the steel wool I stuffed into the cracks around that goddamn thing. Gee thanks, Gerardo! So now I’ll have to get out there and stuff new steel wool in, allllll around that lash-up.

WHY do workers think you do things if you don’t WANT them done that way? WHY do they feel called upon to undo all your little do-it-yourself stop-gap (heh! literally!!) measures?????

Not sure enough steel wool is left to go all the way around the deck. If not, then I’ll have to drive to Home Depot and buy some more of that. Gooooodie!

Maybe I can get it at the hardware store. That place is about a quarter of the distance one has to drive from here to the Depot. That would help a lot.

Ruby has an eye infection. (So do I, come to think of it.) I’ve been dosing her with the OTC stuff the eye doc told me to put in my own eye. It’s hard to find and it’s expensive as Hell. Since we’re both …

…………………………………………………………………….

Gawd DAMMIT!

……………………………………………………………………

Now the damn computer dies!!!!!!

It’s out of juice.

Plug it in…. Nothing

Fight with computer cord

Fight with extension cord

Fight with plug-in outlet

Finally,  weirdly it comes back on.

Ohhhhhhh yeah. This is gonna be one of those days!