Coffee heat rising

Retirement

Later the Same Day

by

October 9: Still. Again. Whatever. 

The nuisance babysitter….uhm, hired companion lurked around until the end of working hours, and finally, along about five o’clock drove off into the distance.

Very nice lady. But…y’know…I’m used to living by myself. And I’ve NEVER liked people lurking around me — not even when I was a little kid. And much, much less now!

As soon as she exited, I set out on a (hot!!) afternoon walk, sans doggy friend. Ruby, of course, likes to charge around the neighborhood at any time and under any circumstances. But it was simply too hot to drag her over the sidewalks and the asphalt roads.

Her human would have preferred not to go strolling about in 100-degree heat — humid heat! — but really: I just had to burn off some of the frustration and annoyance.

Not that the babysitter isn’t a very nice person, very pleasant. Not that she interferes with my life (well…she does, but that’s not her fault). No.

It’s simply that I’m accustomed to living by myself, having done so for lo! these five or six decades. And as the result of that, I really don’t like having someone lurking around all day, no matter how nice they are and no matter how much their presence enhances my safety and well-being. Yes: I do like people (well…most of ’em). But I also like my aloneness — to the extent of preferring it, most of the time.

What to do about this annoying development?

Well…  My inclination is to say nothing. Just let it go on. And try to train myself to get used to it.

The alternative is much worse.

My son was seriously considering consigning me to an old-folkerie called The Beatitudes: effectively a prison for the aged and the infirm. And that truly does fill me with horror.

Mercifully, he allowed himself to be persuaded to hire babysitters…uhm, caretakers…to come in and fill the daytime hours with me. These women are supposed to keep an eye on me, take me to grocery stores, see that I don’t get into any mischief, watch that I bathe and eat and keep the house tidy.

Now…whereas I can’t say I like that prospect (ugh!!!!), it’s about a hundred times better than being consigned to an institution.

Our lady doesn’t get here until after Ruby and I have had time to make our morning hike around the ‘Hood. (That can fill anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour). And once the summer heat passes, she’ll be gone in plenty of time to let me make another little hike to run off any frustration and aggravation.

Plus she can drive me to grocery stores…and…I’m hoping, if I’m really nice to her, she may agree to help me get Ruby to the vet, whose offices are a bit too far for us to reach on foot. Especially in this heat.

Anyway…it’s annoying, that’s for sure. But it’s one HELLUVA lot less annoying than being locked up in an old-folkerie.

Hotter Than the Hubs…

by

Jayzuz, it’s HOT out there!

Actually, it’s not so very hot: it’s kinda humid. In Arizona, humidity makes a warm day feel hotter than a by-gawd. Wunderground says the temp just now is only 94 degrees. Which for an Arizona mid-day is NOT very hot.

We’ve got 25% humidity, though. That’s fairly soggy, as an Arizona day goes.

I grew up in lovely Saudi Arabia: on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Days like this were normal in that garden spot. Seriously: I’ve seen it so humid that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky.

Kinda doubt that we’ll see that phenomenon here, though. It just ain’t a-gonna get that humid in lovely uptown Arizona: ever.

Ugh! Ten years of living in Arabia must have been an extended species of torture for my poor mother! She was an Upstate New York girl. There, we’re told, summer temperatures range from upper 70s to the mid-80s. I can’t imagine how she survived in the Hell that was Ras Tanura.

Honestly, today she’d be scared to death, what with the threats of war and actual attacks on the refinery. By this point, though, my father probably would have sent her and me back to the States. Probably wouldn’t have left, himself….he earned a stupefying salary and wouldn’t have been quick to abandon it.

At any rate…a hot, muggy day like this reminds me — if distantly — of those ugly days in Saudi Arabia.

One of the best things my father did for me and my mother was to send us back to the United States three months before he left that living Hell out there. We landed in San Francisco, my mother rented a nice apartment in a compound called Parkmerced, and then put me into an excellent public school. I really did enjoy that place…and given a chance and a choice, I’d go back there in an instant!

What a relief, to get out of the Hell that was the Ras Tanura Senior Staff School. Hell populated by nasty little devils led by morons pretending to be teachers….

I loved living in Parkmerced — one of the few things that made me happy at any time during my childhood. And really: given a chance, I’d go back there right now.

San Francisco! That’s the place!

 

 

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.

And the Day Staggers On…

by

Yeah: it’s still pretty “Rasty Nasty“out there under the cheery blast…uhm, glow of an Arizona afternoon sun.

The little dog seems significantly better this afternoon: the horking and coughing have about faded away. I think — hope — there’ll be no need to drag her through the unholy heat to have a vet look at her.

Exercise-traipsing around the ‘Hood just now, I was reminded of how much my mother loved Arizona…how grateful she was to my father for installing them in sizzling, sky-roaring, anachronistic Sun City. Oh, my…she did love it!

At this moment: Horribly hot for an exercise traipse. This is weather that makes me wish I were back in San Francisco. Even in Long Beach, that capital of the bourgeois.

Personally, I’m none too fond of Arizona. But I ain’t movin’ on…no way, no how. For one simple reason: my excellent son is here. And where he is: that’s where I’m gonna be.

If he were to decamp to, say, Colorado (where I believe he would rather be), I’d follow him. To Canada or Mexico? Not so much. But almost certainly anyplace in the U.S.

***

Heh!  I sure have lived in a lot of places on this planet! Let’s add them up…

  • Long Beach, California
  • San Francisco, California
  • Richmond, California
  • Alameda, California
  • Berkeley, California
  • Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia
  • Beirut, Lebanon
  • London, England
  • Tucson, Arizona
  • Phoenix, Arizona
  • Sun City, Arizona

LOL! I’ve probably lost track of some of them! 😀

Now, yea verily: Arizona isn’t my favorite venue. Particularly not the gawdawful Phoenix area and its environs. The sole reason I’m here is that my son is here. And…as long as he stays here, I’ll stay here. If he were to move on? Chances are, I’d follow him. At the very least, I’d move out of the (un)lovely Valley of the Sun.

But more likely, wherever he goes, I’ll go.

Melted!!!

by

Argh! I overestimated the heat when I went for today’s exercise stroll. As we scribble, Wunderground claims the temp is 111 just now. “Feels like 117.”

Is THAT all?

Yeah…well, I’d have guessed 119. 😀

It feels like freaking Saudi Arabia out there, where we lived on the edge of the Persian Gulf: hot, humid, and suffocating. And yes, that place was capable of reaching 120 degrees. Nooooo problem!

So, 117 degrees doesn’t seem THAT out of the ordinary. Eh?

This is one of many days that make me wish I were back in San Francisco. Where I belong.

Ohhh well. That ain’t ever gonna happen again. My son is here, and I’m not leaving as long as that’s the fact.

{sigh}

Most of the time, Arizona has a tolerable climate. It does get absurdly hot in the summertime, as we can see by today’s balmy afternoon. But the winters are lovely, as are most of the spring and fall days.

That notwithstanding, I do wish my parents had never discovered Sun City, the garden spot that drew them here. Boyoboy! Imagine a whole gigantic subdivision where NO KIDS ARE ALLOWED!

Goodie.

You were allowed to live there if your brats were over 18 or off in college. I was 16.  So…

They engineered a deal with the University of Arizona whereby I would start my freshman year there a year early. So it went: I dropped out of high school at the end of my junior year, and they dragged me to Arizona. Soon as we got here, they exiled me to Tucson.

That I was all set to go to UC Berkeley the following year meant nothing to my father. (Well…he himself was a high-school dropout, and the truth was he understood little or nothing about universities and university education…) They yanked me out of school, sent me off to Tucson, and with great delight moved themselves into a pleasant tract house under the flight path of the war planes from Luke Air Force Base.

The cute little Sun City house was my father’s lifetime gift to her. And she was SO delighted with it! Seriously: she even made herself relish the roar of those damn fighter jets: as the pilots practiced, she’d sit out on the back porch in the morning sipping her coffee and simper, “Ohhhh! it’s the sound of freedom!”

Yeah, Mom… The sound of World War III comin’ our way…

She loved it, though. So it was a beautiful thing he did for her, after decades of marriage living in difficult conditions.

Charging off to college a year early was a nice ego trip for me…though it wasn’t the greatest of all possible ideas. At 16, I really was too young to go off by myself. I did OK — the UofA was hardly the most challenging of all possible higher ed institutions.  But I would have been better off waiting a year or two. And FAR better off going to one of the University of California campuses.

Not that I did all that poorly: I did graduate Phi Beta Kappa. But my social life left something to be desired. Like, for example…a social life.

So…heh! I guess you could say my life was melted. Just as I was melted by today’s blasting heat on the sidewalks of the ‘Hood.

And that was one of the first reasons that the phrase “I hate Arizona” became my byword.