Coffee heat rising

Pets

Is there a REASON we never notice…???

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{chortle!} Just back from the early morning dawg traipse. It’s a little after 9 a.m.

I take it into my vacant little noggin that I should walk over to the Sprouts (a few blocks away, across Main Drag West), thereinat to buy a new bag of coffee beans and some beloved dawg food and…such-like. What time do they open?

Get online and discover they’ve been open since 7 this morning!

Argha!!!!  If I had a fake “disabled” dog vest for Ruby, we could have darted in there while we were trudging around the neighborhood!

Not quite my style… But…did you realize you can buy those things online? Amazon peddles alleged “disabled” dog vests for a dime a dozen.

Well…a large dime. But still: they’re easily available. Probably can get them in local pet stores, too.

LOL! I was sitting in the church one day when some lady came in with a ridiculous tiny pooch, gussied up in an alleged “disabled” vest. She picked the little guy up and set him on the pew next to her!

Holee holee maquerel!

You don’t see obvious fake “service dog” vests often. Mostly you see them in grocery stores around here, no doubt because dogs are considered too unsanitary to allow in a grocery store. In England, we saw companion dogs everywhere: not just in grocery stores and pharmacies but also in restaurants. Around here, a “service dog” vest is something you might see once every two or three weeks…probably because the things are kind of expensive.

And most people don’t have the chutzpah to tell someone who dares to challenge them to kindly fu*k off. Who needs that kind of confrontation?

😀
😮
😀

Colder Than a By-gawd…

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…as my father used to say. Things were colder than, hotter than, faster than, slower than, pricier than, smarter than, stupider than…a by-gawd. 

And no, I don’t know if he knew what the word “bigod” meant. Or even that there was such a word. He wasn’t what you’d call a real eddycated fella.

At any rate, it’s passing crisp out there on the back porch: 40 degrees. For southern Arizona, that’s practically an Arctic freeze!

Was gonna take the dog for her (usual) daily walk this ayem, but decided agin’ it given the chill on the air. So…we loaf.

Actually, Ruby patrols the back yard, ever-hopeful that the beloved Pool Dude will show up. Oh, how she adores that man! 

And why? That escapes me. He looks like an ordinary sorta fella, a guy who got trained to clean pools while he was serving a prison sentence (as indeed is the case with many pool dudes). WHAT has he done to so ingratiate himself with that dawg?

Seriously: she does know when it’s Pool Dude day (how???), and she lurks by the door or by the pool fence waiting for him to show up.

Ooohh well. It’s after 9:00 ayem and still damn cold out there.

Probably should stroll over to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s and restock a few (un)necessaries. But my enthusiasm for traipsing through the ‘Hood and dodging bums to the left of me and bums to the right of me is…well…limited. So is the enthusiasm for leaving Ruby locked up in the house when she really does need a walk.

Occurs to me that I could order up a service dog vest for Ruby, so I can take her into stores and (apparently) even on busses and streetcars. You can buy them on Amazon, no questions asked. Apparently people are not allowed(!!) to ask you for any other evidence or proof that your mutt really is a service dog. If we had one of those li’l costumes, we both could go into any of the five grocery and drug stores within easy walking distance of the Funny Farm. Down at the church, one woman even used to bring her lap-dog sized little mutt to the services, gussied up in one of those vests, and park it next to her on a pew!

Heh heh…not to say {cackle!!}….  Has a certain appeal, doesn’t it?

LOL! I wonder if bums would leave you alone if you had a corgi with you. 😀

Seriously: when a German shepherd would accompany me on a stroll around the ‘Hood, NO ONE would pester me. Lacking such a bodyguard, o’course, the locals will hit you up for handouts, make passes at you, holler obscenities at you…  Blech! What a place.

Maybe I should follow SDXB to Sun City: a.k.a. Mausoleum West. 

[sigh} I truly hated living there when my parents had a Sun City house.

Nice loafing porch, eh? Looks just like my parents' place...At the time they were there, the place was Hate Central. If anyone of a darker persuasion dared to move in, they would be HOUNDED out. And yea verily: I kid you not. That happened, just a year or so ago, to a friend of mine. So I assume Sun City is still as Whitey-White as it was Back in the Day.

What an awful place!

Well. They liked it, though. The constant roar of fighter jets overhead (ooohhh, it’s the sound of freedom! my mother would coo) was a worthwhile trade-off, in their minds, for a housing tract fully free of brown faces.

And one benefit of it would be a paucity of jerks hanging around waiting for women to ogle.

 

 

Dog as Everywhere Everywhen Companion

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Good grief!!!  Did you realize that…my goodness!  You don’t need to have official, doctor-certified proof that your dog is a service dog to acquire a “service dog” vest that will let you take the critter just about anyplace you can go?

Check this out:  Service Dog Info…

Really, all you need is a service dog vest, which you can order from Amazon.

And if some clown demands to see proof the dog is a certified “service dog”? Well:  You raise your hackles and you get huffy as hell and you tell him to take a flying f*** at the moon.

The likelihood that anyone will bother you is fairly low. But knowing humanity, don’t you just KNOW someone will pestiferize you? So be prepared with a high-handed reply. Practice it at home, even.

Betcha you could get away with it 99% of the time.

😀

Seriously (almost)… If I could take Ruby with me, right this minute I’d get off my duff and hike over to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts, dawg in tow. Dawg would be delighted. I’d get a bottle of beer or a package of junk food. And I wouldn’t feel even the slightest bit guilty over galloping off and leaving the dawg behind at the house.

Kids!!! <3 Kids!!!

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Joy! The ‘Hood gets better and better! Because..NOW we’re getting KIDS!

Gosh, what could possibly BE better than a passel kids playing out front?

The neighbors have thrown a birthday party for one of their short set. Maybe a dozen wonderful pre-teens out there, running around and partying and laughing.

Ruby and I set out for a walk. As we pass by the chivaree, a passel of short stuff comes running out to dote on the corgi. 😀

“Can we pet her? Can we pet her?”

LOL! You imagine she’ll let you get away without petting her???

So now we have a new crowd of lifelong friends. Too, too fun. 

Yes, I do love this neighorhood.
Why d’you ask? 
😀

Awww, jeez! Guys!!!!

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Dare to sit down to breakfast, and ARF!!!!

Get up to see what the Hound is arfing at, and see Gerardo’s wondrous gang of yard dudes out front.

Dayum!!!

Get off duff. Trot around: pick up junk, put junk away; set up pool so guys can work around it; pick up more junk, put more junk away; pick up and discard mounds of dog sh!t… Finally get the place ready for the men.

Stumble back in the house. Look out front to see if they need me to go out there and unlock the side gate…

and…

and….

THEY’RE GONE!!!!!!!

WTF??????  Nary a sign of a yard dude! Or a yard dude’s truck!!

ohhhh…kayyyy…. So where’s the dog?????

Ruby!

RUBY!!

R-U-U-B-E-E-E-E!!!!!!

Nary a small fuzzy corgi!

Ohhhhh shee-ut! Did they open the gate and let her out?

Frantically search around and search around and call and call and search around and search around and call and call and…and…

Lo!
Here she is! 
Ambling out from underneath the toilet.

ggrrrrrr….  This is gonna be one of THOSE days, ain’t it?

Glorioski Morning

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Truly: a genuinely beautiful day has dawned. Ruby and I loaf in the west side yard, having traipsed all over the neighborhood.

Dodged Mr. Coyote while on that junket. Fortunately, the coyotes here are more scared of the humans than the humans are scared are of them…and that is irrationally scared. So our wild doggy friend melted away into the landscaping as we strolled past.

LOL! I do carry a walking stick on these doggy-treks. Not to help with walking on the utterly flat roads here. But to serve as a shillelagh if one is ever needed.

Gorgeous day or no gorgeous day, chances are the Dawg and I will head back to the sack in fairly short order. For reasons unknown, I’m feeling unduly sleepy.

In these parts, you’re more likely to need a shillelagh to defend against a human predator than to beat back a coyote. But this morning, not even one of the two-legged critters was in evidence. So, it was a nice day for a doggy-walk.

And right now, it being Sunday morning, the ‘Hood loafs in the Silence of the Tomb. It’s very, very quiet out here, except for the annoying roar of yet another jet plane. We’re far enough from the commercial airport AND far enough from Luke Air Force Base that the planes are well overhead by the time they get this far. But…not far enough overhead to completely silence the things.

One of my mother’s oddities was that she actually LIKED the sound of fighter jets charging around overhead. “It’s the sound of freedom,” she would simper.

Nothing like another World War to bring you a spate of freedom, eh?