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Morning in Aridzona…

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Brrrrr! It’s mighty cold out there come seven in the morning: just 89 degrees.

In fact, even for lovely uptown Phoenix, that’s hot and muggy. The air is so damp it’s practically squishy.

Ruby and the Human:  just back from circumnavigating the ‘Hood: over to the park, down the street that parallels the south side of the park, past the home (uhm…former home) of the folks who lost everything when their son got arrested for diddling some underage chippy, up the east side of the park: northerly, northerly into Upper Richistan.

Lovely neighborhood, that. The Richistans are occupied by folks who can afford acre-plus irrigated lots, big swell houses, and armies of workmen. Personally, I wouldn’t want to live there: been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again. Riding herd on 87 berjillion yard guys, maintenance guys, repairmen, cleaners…and on and on and on… Blech! Never again!

But still: it’s fun to eyeball other people’s overpriced, high-maintenance properties. 😀

The beloved Old Guy is no longer in evidence. He would hang out in a lawn chair parked on his front driveway, his coffee and his newspaper in hand, and greet all us passers-by. I do miss him.

With any luck, he will have dropped dead of a heart attack. More likely, though, this being Today’s Day & Age, he’s locked up in some old-folkerie, waiting for Death to come and get him.

That seems to be the fate of most of today’s denizens of the middle and upper classes. We don’t die in a timely way. We drag out dying, and drag it out and drag it out and drag it out…horribly, hideously. Parked in a dreary prison for old folks, where we rot away like so much unrefrigerated bacon.

Please, dear God: please, just let me drop dead on the sidewalk!

Y’know, before you croak over or end up in an old-folkerie, you should find out what your grown kids REALLY want you to do with your property.

You assume, quite reasonably in its antiquated way, that they will want to inherit your beloved home and its handsome yard and…all that. But consider: it ain’t necessarily so!

A lot of grown offspring have their own homes. Homes with which they’re quite satisfied. Homes they don’t want to move out of. Foist a $300,000 piece of property on them and now they’re burdened with something they’ve got to figure out what to do with. Something laden with emotional overtones that make them feel guilty when they go to sell the place.

If they can bring themselves to sell it, that is.

Now they’re stuck with it. What ARE they gonna do with it?

I’m pretty sure my son wants this house. But…before much longer, I do need to sit down with him and ask him whether he really does want it, or whether it would be better for me to sell it before I croak over and invest the proceeds in some cash instrument he can inherit and do with as he pleases. With minimal hassle, that is.

Of course, that’s one of those conversations none of us wants to have.

And as you know, we’re likely to put it off and put it off and put it off until…well…it’s too late.

***********

Speaking of selling or not selling the shack…

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ONE RINGY- DINGY! TWO RINGY-DINGIES! THREE….

No, I don’t recognize the caller’s number. That means chances are about nine out of ten that this is yet another goddamn nuisance phone solicitor.

Me: “And what would you be wanting?”

Her (after a brief, awkward pause: “Would you be interested in selling your house?”

Me: “GET OFF MY F*CKING PHONE AND STAY OFF MY F*CKING PHONE!!!!!!!!!

Gawd ALMIGHTY am I sick and tired of morons calling me on the phone to hustle me.

It should be illegal to call a phone number unless you have real, certifiable business with the number’s owner.

Heeeeeeee!  What d’you suppose would happen if, when an idiot phone solicitor gets you on the horn, you were to say, “Did you make an appointment to call me”?

Them: Duuuuhhhhh… Uhm…an appointment? 

You: Yeah. you need to have an appointment to call here. What’s your name and what is your appointment number?

{chortle!} Godlmighty, but I hate these people. Wish there was a better way to bug them than by blowing an air horn into the phone.

I wore out my air horn. Guess I should order another one from Amazon.

😀

Bastards.

Did you know that many of those folks — possibly most of them — are calling from inside prisons?

Phone solicitation is a prison industry. A substantial number of the jerks who pester you on the phone are more than jerks: they’re criminals. 

Gettin’ Old…and Stayin’ Free!

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My roommate at the University of Arizona had an aunt in Tucson who allowed herself to be persuaded (by my rm’s mother) to tell the university that we two girls were going to live at her house. (In those days, undergraduate girls were required to live in the dorms, unless they stayed at home.) We promptly moved into our own apartment. And lo! We escaped the Hell that was the University of Arizona’s dormitory system.

Well, that’s about how I see our present-day old-folkeries: as institutions of Hell. I most surely don’t want to live in such a place. NEVER AGAIN! I cherish my aloneness. I love living in my house. And when Ruby barks (corgis surely CAN bark!), she doesn’t bother anyone.  When a neighbor chooses to turn their TV to “blast,” the damn thing is far enough away that the racket doesn’t penetrate my bedroom walls. Or any of my walls!

So…how to stay out of some awful place designed as a prison for the useless elderly?

Back in the Dark Ages, old buzzards often – maybe usually – moved in with an adult child’s family. My great-grandmother, for example, lived with her daughter, whose own son and daughter-in-law lived within walking distance.

That, you may be damn sure, ain’t gonna happen in our time and in our space! 😀

Fastest way possible to drive my poor son nuts!

But…but…waitaminit here!

WHAT IF you didn’t live with the offspring, but rather within walking distance? Or within a few minutes’ drive time?

That would give the adult kid easy, fast access to you – and you access to them.

And…in my case, what would it do for me?

Well, it would put my heroic son within a few minutes’ drive – or even walk. So, he could rescue me from myself, when needed. Conversely, I could easily reach his place, even on foot, making it possible (even easy) to pester the bedoodles outta him. 😉

Seriously: it would make it easy for me to take gifts of food and other treats to him. Easy to haunt him when I have some PITA that needs a grown man to handle. Easy for him to pick me up and schlep me to the dentist (or wherever).

And thereby it would facilitate my living at home as long as possible: preferably until I croak over.

Voilà! I get my privacy and peace & quiet. He gets his mutther where he can keep an eye on the ole’ bat.

Welp…all those bennies are, in fact, a shade on the optimistic side. My son has, of all things, a JOB (remember those?). He works out of his home for a large international insurance company. This, as you might imagine, does keep him busy.

Very busy,

So he can’t be trotting back and forth to my house or chauffeuring me around the city.

Fortunately, the corner of this city where I live happens to be well stocked with conveniences. Within a couple of blocks, we have an Albertson’s (supermarket par excellence), a more or less competent computer store, a Walgreen’s, a T-Mobile, a Bookman’s…. on and on and ON. About 90% of the time, you really don’t need a car to supply your needs here.

Gilding that lily, the swell new lightrail train comes right up into the ‘Hood., northbound from the downtown district. And the city is building extensions that will carry passengers east and west  and, eventually, further north into the middle-class suburbs along the freeway. In another few years, I’ll be able to get out to the university without ever touching an ignition key.

Mercifully, the time for me to need to commute to campus has passed…”mercifully” because no, I do NOT enjoy being groped by fellow passengers on those trains, or hooted and yelled at by jerk drivers as I stand at a bus stop. But if few minor irritants bother you, these trains ARE the Business.

Now…admittedly, there are some benefits to locking yourself into an old-folkerie.  In my father’s case, for example, one day he sat down for a huge mid-day meal in the dining hall and…promptly had a stroke!

Staff members there recognized what was happening and called for help on the spot. MUCH faster than I would have been able to call, even though I was sitting right there beside him. And they knew exactly what they were talking about when they spoke with the operator. Help arrived within minutes…and it was help who knew what to expect and how to address the disaster under way.

That wouldn’t happen if I had a stroke as I was sitting at my dining room table here at the Funny Farm. Of that you may be sure.

Someone would discover my corpse a few days later – maybe. Probably gnawed on by a hungry hound.

At any rate: just now one option is, in fact, for me to stay right where I am.

Another would be for me to move closer to where my son is.

His place is within walking distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Gourmet Market, a few steps from the lightrail, minutes from two major regional hospitals. So…if I lived near him, I really wouldn’t need a car at all. I could use taxicabs if there were some reason not to walk, and in a real emergency, an ambulance would arrive within seconds.

Heh heh! JUST what my son needs, right? For his muther to move in three houses up the road! 😀

Ohhhhh well… It’s something to think about. If not to laugh about.

So there!!!

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LOL! The latest set of exterior decorations is now mounted on the front gates and doors.

😀

Gawdlmighty, i’m sooooo obnxious, even I think it’s funny!

Probably just like your neighborhood, the Funny Farm’s ‘hood is overrun with nuisance door-to-door solicitors. Some of these folks are peddling junk; others are trying to get signatures on petitions. Sooooo…it’s ringy-dingy-bingy-bong at the damn front door, practically every day. Dawn to dusk.

A year or so ago, I got the bright idea of putting up signs saying, in effect, “Please don’t ring the doorbell. No Solicitation.”

As you know, these normally have little effect on the legions of nuisances. Sooo…I decided to make the message a little stronger.

On side gate to the front patio:

PLEASE NO SOLICITING!

We’re not interested in what you’re selling.
We’re not interested in your political campaign.
We have already signed your petition, or decided not to.
DO NOT PESTER BY JANGLING THE DOORBELL, PLEASE!

AMAZON * UPS
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

On the front gate to the same patio and on the same side gate to that patio:

AMAZON:
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

 

On the security screen at the front door:

NO SOLICITING
****
NO PETITIONS
****
Please!!!!!!!!!

Interestingly, this barrage of messages works!

LOL! As you may gather, these people are almost as pesky as phone solicitors. So a sign that says PRIVATE does exactly no good. And about 10% of them ignore “NO SOLICITING” SIGNS. But apparently beating the sleazes about the head and shoulders with your message gets through to most of them.

Now. If you could only do that with the phone….

Heh… Our neighborhood techno-guru, Will, set up a video system at his front door. So…he can and does capture the antics that happen in front of his house, when Amazon and UPS trucks turn up with thieves’ cars in tow. There’s one woman, in particular, who follows the Amazon truck around in her car, waits till the delivery dude drives off, jumps out of her car and grabs the delivered packages, runs back to her car, tosses them into the back seat, and takes off down the road after the Amazon guy.

Is Amazon Guy aware of this? Could they be in cahoots?

Hm.

As likely as not, I’d say. You’d think after awhile he’d notice he’s being followed. But…it’s gotta be a mind-numbing job. Maybe, just maybe he really doesn’t notice.

Anything’s possible. I guess.

At any rate, for the nonce the “no soliciting, no petitions” message is working. Now…if only I could make that work on the phone!

Another Day to Cope With….

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One of the joys of old age seems to be that almost every day of your life is filled with hassles, most of them entailing trips to doctor’s offices or efforts to keep your personal infrastructure running. Today’s menu includes both of those.

Something has happened to my ancient land-line phone. When I’m talking to someone, they complain that I’m “breaking up” and they can’t hear the conversation. I have no problem hearing them, so apparently the issue is with the out-going function, whatever that is. Cox, after a long and annoying runaround, agreed to send someone out to try to fix it. Which of course he’ll be able to do only if the problem is with Cox’s lines, not if the problem is the gadget itself.

He’s supposed to appear between 8 and 10:30. Let’s hope (against hope….) that he actually shows up in that time frame. Because I’m supposed to appear, too: at the dermatologist’s office, an hour-long drive across the city. I’ll have to leave here by about 11:30 to get there on time.

So there’s exactly no wriggle room there.

A signal joy of old age, at least for people who have lived all their lives in sunny climates, is that your skin sprouts carcinomas like an Ohio farm field sprouts corn. Since the last time I saw Dr. Derm, I’ve developed at least three and probably more spots that will have to be cut or frozen off. Whee! I can hardly wait.

If the Cox guy says the problem with my phone is the devices, then I’ll have to stop by a Best Buy and pick up another set of phones that don’t make me crazy trying to work them. Assuming such phones are still being made….

The ones I have came from Costco. There’s a Costco on the way back from lovely Avondale, but it’s in a part of town where I’m not at all comfortable getting out of my car. Plus the first (and last) time I went into that store, their staff was astonishingly rude to me…. So I’m not about to go back there.

If I have to buy another phone, then, I’ll have to go to the Costco wayyyyyy up on the freeway, halfway to freaking Flagstaff, or the one all the way over at 44th street. I’ll be spending the dermatologist’s time at 107th Avenue. Streets in Phoenix are on the east side of Central Avenue; Avenues are on the west side…that’s 151 blocks of hectic city traffic to contend with: a good 20 miles from my house. The Costco I usually go to is 23 miles from the derm’s office and 9 miles back from that Costco to my house: 32 miles through crazy-making, dangerous traffic. In the rain.

The likelihood that I’ll be able to find a new land-line phone is slim to none, o’course. Most folks have thrown those out and replaced them with cell phones.

Now…that’s nice….except….

a) I am all learning-curved out. Try as I may, I can NOT figure out how to use the expensive iPhone my son gave me a couple years ago. He gave me the phone just as the plague was coming down on us. Result: the classes on how to use it that took place in a local senior center were shut down. They’ve never resumed. The class that the Apple store offers, wayyyyyy to hell and gone on the northwest side of town, was a ridiculous joke.

b) It’s another thing to lose. If I don’t set it down in the SAME PLACE every time I pick it up, I’m going to lose it. That’s not a “maybe.” That’s an “absolutely positively.” Then I will spend heaven only knows how long banging around the house and the car frantically searching for it…give up…and finally several days later — after I’ve bought a new phone — find it. This is not a device that works for old folks, for people whose lives have any distractions whatsoever,  or for those who aren’t memorizing every goddamn step they take as they move through life.

c) It’s something else for phone solicitors to pester me with. I’ve managed to block most phone soliciting on the land lines (at the expense of blocking all incoming calls from the west side and from many area codes).

I get up to ten nuisance phone solicitations every day. Blocking area codes and certain prefixes cuts this to two or three pestering calls per day. My phones are set up to minimize that harassment.

Change my number over to the iPhone and…yeah. Here we go again!

It appears you can replicate the area-code blocking on an iPhone, sure. But you have to pay for the privilege! Natcherly.

Lordie! It’s after 7 a.m. Gotta start running…

****

P.S. Just to frost all those cakes, I go to let the dog out and find…it’s raining!

Ohhhhh Hell & damnation. It’s hard enough to schlep to the far, far west side under the best of circumstances. But to do it while dodging around repairmen AND coping with the homicidal drivers on slick, wet roads…dayum!

I may have to call the dermatologist and reschedule, if they’ll allow it.

******

Cox guy in. Cox guy fixes phone. Finds defective cable. Fixes. Cox guy out.

Meanwhile, adding a litle chaos: pool dude in, pool dude paid, pool dude out. Dog gets into pool area but, for a miraculous change, does NOT fall into the (icy-cold!) drink.

Doctor’s appointment canceled: saved from THAT unholy hassle.

Lost iPhone found. Plugged back in.

It’s ten minutes to ten.

Now…if the dust will just settle….maybe I can have breakfast???

Fone Frolicks and Fluff…

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Took some time, but for the nonce — and suddenly — it looks like Cox has got the phone situation under control

Some vast snafu arose last week, so involved I couldn’t explain it here because I couldn’t understand it myself. Cox sent over a tech — one of the nicest men I’ve met in decades. He worked on the phone system for a couple of hours, and now, hallelujah! It seems to be doing what a landline phone is SUPPOSED to do.

Yeah…i know…but i keep the landline for some specific practical reasons.

One is that I know how to use it. Every cell phone seems to be different, and every one of them presents a new learning curve, highly decorated with annoyance and frustration. So, all told…

  • We have the cool iPhone my son gave me, which I have yet to figure out. So far I have managed to learn how to make a phone call and how to call up a map. but…geez…should I have to get a graduate degree in electronic engineering to make a phone call?
  • We have four or five extremely cheapo flip phones that can be carried in a pocket out by the pool, around the house, and when walking the dog. (No: an iPhone does NOT fit in the pockets of a pair of women’s jeans!)  These are not hooked up to any service. Because of the law that says all cell phones have to be able to dial 911 whether they’re connected or not, their purpose is exactly that: for dialing 911 in the next emergency.
  • We have the landline with five extensions, three of them situated within grabbing distance of the floor, for use if I fall and bust myself.

The problem with the landline of late has been an unending blitz of junk phone-soliciting calls. Of late — over the past few months — I’ve been getting 10 or 12 nuisance calls a day! EVERY day. This has about rendered the landline useless, risk of falls or no risk of falls.

The Cox guy cleaned up a bunch of glitches and set the modem so it works the way it’s supposed to. Good.

A-N-N-D… it appears that Cox has connected my land line number with its industrial-strength call blocker!

The CPR Call Blocker, a handy-dandy little gadget that you plug in-line with your phone & your land-line connection, works to some extent. But it seems to be maxed — of late it hasn’t been working worth a damn. I’ve been getting ten or twelve nuisance calls a day! All day, from early morning to 9 or 10 at night. I don’t know whether it’s maxed, or whether the bastards have now got a way to circumvent the thing. Whatever, it doesn’t work anymore.

But today, after I talked with the Cox folks again about this problem, not one nuisance phone call has come in since dawn!

Suspicious, I’ve called the landline number a couple of times from the iPhone. The clunker phone does seem to be working. So the only thing I can figure — and hope! — is that Cox’s call-blocking system DOES work.

Meanwhile, my son has gone off to Colorado to attend some obsequies for his late grandmother — more on that later, when I feel like writing more. Just now, I’m going to bed, before the dogs change their minds!

Making Telephone Solicitation FUN….

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Mwa ha ha! The idea I came up with for harassing the goddamn nuisance telephone solicitors is WORKING. And it is a bit of a hoot.

Thought I’d described this antic in a post here on Funny, but don’t see the thing in the blog’s dashboard. Must have held forth about it on Facebook. Oh well…

Here’s the gambit:

When a phone solicitor calls, instead of hitting “call block” (which, since they spoof telephone numbers, doesn’t block THEIR phone but instead blocks some innocent soul in your area code or even your own exchange), pick up the phone and speak sorta politely into it.

Let the crook begin to deliver his pitch. As he yammers on, take a deep breath and SCREAM AT THE VERY TOP OF YOUR VOICE, as LOUD as you can, into the phone. SHRIEK YOUR GUTS OUT. Give him the shrillest, loudest, earsplittingest

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH

you can blast out.

Scream nonstop until you run completely out of breath. Then hang up. Do not speak a word. Just hang up.

Most of the criminals are probably using headphones to do their job. That means you leave not one but both of their ears ringing. With any luck, maybe you’ll burst the bastard’s eardrum.

Interestingly, this seems to have worked. It’s 10:15 a.m. just now, and I just repelled only the first nuisance call of the day. Usually they start about 8:00 a.m. — sometimes even earlier. And the number of nuisance calls has dropped spectacularly, from around 10 calls a day to one or two. Some days even none!

No kidding: I was getting up to a dozen pestering calls a day. Never fewer than eight or ten.

Within a couple of days after I started the Scream Gambit, the phone soliciting harassment dropped like the bastards all fell off a cliff — down to one or two calls, and some days even none. For those that persist: it’s strangely gratifying to know you left the SOB’s ears ringing.

So far I haven’t done it, because I haven’t wanted to pony up the cash, but part of the plan is to buy one or more recorders so I can play back the SHRIIIEEEEEEEEEK into the phone without having to strain the vocal cords. But seriously: after s few days of this, the number of calls has dropped to the point where that may not be necessary.

Silence is golden…