Coffee heat rising

Pets

Arf, we say. ARF!!

by

Too, too WONNERFUL!  

M’jito brought his beautiful new puppy over this afternoon! The little gal is a lovely little white golden retriever, fluffy all over and cute as can be.

Friendly. Cute! Unfazed by Ruby. Cute! Full of ginger. Cute!

Everyone needs a puppy. All. the. time. Right?

This little pooch will be a worthy successor to the illustrious Charley the Golden Retriever, who recently passed on to his furry fathers.

Charley was an old man. I sure hope this pup lives to a ripe old age, too. Can’t see any reason why she wouldn’t: she looks healthy, happy, and NO ONE can take care of a dog the way M’hijito does.

Charley in the car

Woof!

by

Good freakin’ morning, America!

Five-thirty in the freakin’ morning, and the dawg just rousted me out of the sack, barfing.

Actually, I’m not sure she actually woofed up. Got her outside before she threw up, and she then seemed sorta OK. Then I stumbled inside. She just roamed back in and appears not to be barfing.

Not right this minute, anyhow.

Something outside is whining. What, I can’t tell. Apparently not one of the wind turbines on the roof…but I can’t echolocate on it. Is it off in the distance, or…what?

BASHED THE HELL out of my foot on the screen door, dammit! Injury’s not that bad, but it appears to be on top of an older, yet-to-heal injury.

Never a damn dull moment, eh?

Welp…today is supposed to hit 109 degrees, according to Wunderground. Better bandage up the wounded paw and take the dog out before it’s too late.

{sigh} If it’s ever not too late…

Back!!(wards…)

by

WHY does the Cleaning Lady do this????  No matter how many times she’s been here — and it’s been dozens & dozens — she invariably installs the roll of kitchen towels backward.

EVERY TIME. Backward: no matter what.

😀

I like paper towels to unroll over the top, with the loose end coming toward the user. This, to me, is the easy way to access them, and the least wasteful (because you have easy control over how many sheets peel toward you off the roll).

Luz, on the other hand, has other ideas. She installs the towels so they unroll away from the user, toward the wall where the towel holder is hanging. This, IMHO, is a PITA.  😀

Every time she’s here, she puts the towels in backward. Every time she leaves, I re-install them to fit my taste in paper-towel rolling. Every time she returns, she re-re-installs them backward.

{OOOOOh geez! Pool Dude just walked in, triggering a frenzy of Dog Joy. WHY does this dog love that man so much???}

He’s already done! Man! That guy does a job in 10 or 15 minutes that takes me half an hour or 40 minutes. And he does it about ten times better than I can.

My, how Ruby adores that man! And I have to say, given all the hassles he spares me, I’m in love, too!

{sigh} He just hyper-chlorinated the drink. So I won’t be jumping in there to cool down from the morning’s Dog Safari. But that’s OK…at least I don’t have to mess with toxic quantities of chlorine.

How DO they know???

by

LOL! Just as I was about to stroll off to the Sprouts, along comes 

ROARRRRRR ROAARRRR ROOOOAAAARRRR!!!

Dayum! It’s Gerardo and his boys. 

Raising the question: How do those guys know when I’m in the middle of something that I can’t easily knock off, or just about to head out the door and need to get going?

They must have some kinda mental telepathy. ‘Cause it never fails. 

No kidding. Absolutely NOTHING can be going on, but when I get up to haul on some clothes and trudge to…where?

* a grocery store
* the Walgreen’s
* the veterinarian
* the dentist’s office
* a doctor’s office
* or just to a trailhead on the side of North Mountain…

THERE THEY ARE!

Sheeeee-ut! 

Now I’ve gotta sit around for 45 minutes, serenaded by leaf-blowers, weed-whackers, and assorted other noise-makers…waiting for them to get done so I can pay them for their (back-breaking!!) work.

Seriously: How these fellas survive a summer in this place just plain escapes me. It is hotter than the Hubs out there — I believe 112 was predicted for today — and they are working like mules. Even with top-of-the-line gasoline-powered tools, that job is best described as A Bitch. I can’t even imagine trying to do it at 11:30 a.m. on a 112-degree day with a 24% chance of rain.

And, since my Dear Son has kiped my car, to do the couple of local errands I was about to launch into, I’ll have to walk through even more ungodly heat, or else hire an Uber cab and pay for two rides (one to the stores; one back to the house). Neither of those are appealing options.

Apparently, a few of the grocery stores around here will deliver. But that poses its own problem: Most Americans do NOT know how to select produce. And since most of my diet consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, about 2/3 of what I order is likely to be…uhm…somewhat wanting.

*****

Our boys FLY through the (gawdawful) yard clean-up. And they charge me $100 for a job that the boss usually does for $80.

Grrrrr.

But truth to tell: I ain’t complaining. It’s hotter than hell out there, and they do a damn good job…

but…

OH HELL AND DAMNATION!

They’ve gone off and left the side gate open!

RUBY!

RUBY!!!

WHERE ARE YOU????

Shoot out the door, trying to chase down the dog!

Incredibly, she hasn’t gone far. Matter of fact, she’s in the house. Thank the Gods and all their angels.

Once that little dog takes off down the street, she is GONE. And unassisted, she’s unlikely ever to make her way back here.

*******

Godlmighty. MAKE THIS DAY STOP!!!!!

Makes the Old Folkerie Look Good…

by

Gawd, I never imagined I’d have any such thought!  But here it is, not even 6 in the morning, and I’m being blitzed with hassle after hassle after HASSLE.

Got to take the dog for a walk before it gets hot — which means we’ve gotta get out the door NOW.

The pool is suffocating in dead leaves. WHERE is Pool Dude????  Amazon just delivered a new net for the leaf catcher, the original having plain worn out. 

Put that out back with a note for Pool Dude. No guarantee the guy is gonna show up.

Pool cleaning is one of the “professions” for which the state prison system trains its residents. So…that means chances are good that your pool cleaner is an ex-convict: not exactly the soul of reliability. I should wait here and see if he shows up, but you KNOW that if I do that, the dog will not get out for her walk. Because…

* The guy won’t show up before 10 a.m., by which time outside temps will be pushing 108 degrees; or
* The guy won’t show up at all.

Meanwhile, to get to the grocery store on foot before it gets too hot to walk up there (my son having purloined my car), I need to get started on that errand NOW.

But I can’t do that and take the dog for a walk. And even if I leave for the store right now, by the time I get back it will be too hot to take Ruby out.

My son is probably right: the time draws nigh when I will no longer be able to stay in my home. I’ll either have to move into an apartment (and what am I gonna do with the dog?) or into an old-folks storage bin (and what am I gonna do with the dog?).

Actually, I think some of those places will let you keep your dog. Ducky: how do you keep her from yappiing at every footfall that comes up the hallway?

Speaking of footfalls: better get the dawg out for her walk before the heat comes up: i.e., NOW.

“The Sound of Freedom”…

by

Yeah. This morning the weather conditions are perfect: we’re being serenaded nonstop by the “Sound of Freedom,” as my mother used to put it while she perched on her back porch over morning coffee.

Noooo, muther, I used to think. That’s the sound of World War III, comin’ our way.

It never seemed to register with her that those fighter jets weren’t up there for pretty. They weren’t up there to amuse the locals.

They were up there to practice blowing civilization back to the Cave Man Era.

They’ve been blasting away all morning. They start as dawn cracks.

It’s almost 8:30, and we’re still getting ROOOOOAAAAARRRRRR ROOOOAAAARRR ROOOARRR from the air base near Sun City — a good 20 miles away. The racket whams through your solid block walls: there’s no escaping it.

{oh, this is nice: WordPress refuses to insert a link. Check it out: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2019/05/17/late-night-f-35-flights-luke-air-force-base-common-during-summer-months/3694405002/}

Really, if my son weren’t here I wouldn’t live in the Valley on a bet.

Dunno, though, where you’d go to escape. Anyplace within 40 or 50 miles is gonna be shuddering with jet engine noise. And the racket no doubt is with us forever…at least for our foreseeable lifetime.

Yea, verily… If my son weren’t here, you can be sure I’d be somewhere else. WHERE else, though, remains a bit of a mystery. Might have to move out of the state. Tibet, maybe???

***

Speaking of morning rackets:

yappa whine
yappa whine
yappa yappa yappa yappa
yap yap WHINE!

Get off duff. Put computer down. Let the dog out.

Let more noise in: rrrrooooarrrr roarrrrrr rrrooaaar…

Any question why the Old Bat is a crabby harridan?

****

LOL! Where could one go that would be quieter?

In theory, the ranch should be, if only it were still accessible to its former owners. But…it’s not.

The ranch sits on the edge of the Mogollon Rim, overlooking the Valley. The West Valley, where Luke Air Force Base reigns noisily supreme. So you’re not gonna get away from much airplane racket up there.

That notwithstanding… {sigh}… I do so miss the ranch. It was beautiful.

Wonder what Ruby would make of a cow? Probably not much, before one of them booted her into the middle of next year.

A ranch dawg, she ain’t! 😀

R-O-O-O-O-A-A-A-A-R-R-R-R