Coffee heat rising

Security

Holy Sh!t….DUCK FOR COVER!

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KeeeeRAAP! Some ba*tard just shot at our cop helicopter!

The action took place a couple blocks to the north of the Funny Farm…maybe three. But definitely on our side of Main Drag North.

Call the dog — she’s loafing in the kitchen, and she sees no good reason to get up and leave her scrap-scavenging post.

Call the dog.

Call the dog.

Call the dog again.

At last the obedient beast decides to get up and roam over to see what I want. Who knows? Maybe the Human has food.

Coax her up the hallway and hit the tiles. 

Stay down until whatEVER-the-Hell is going on quits.

Cop Copter is hovering over our old house, the noise-collector a few houses in from Conduit of Blight Blvd. That’s about a block-and-a-half from where the Funny Farm stands.  We hunker down on the bedroom floor…and….

ohhhhhh shee-ut, here he is again, roaring over at roof-top height. 

WTF?

Stay hunkered.

At last the Copter swoops around and takes off into the north-easterly distance.

Lift the corgi onto the bed. Check the doors — for the third time! — to be sure everything is locked.

Climb onto the sack with the dog.

Holeeee krap, what a place!

Chaos in Hevvin…

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Well… {ahem}…one wouldn’t exactly call Conduit of Blight Boulevard “Heaven.” But it’s not too bad, as Phoenix-area main drags go.

Apparently some new catastrophe has taken place, though, amid the fine rush-hour traffic. Sirens have been yowling up and down Blight Blvd for the past half-hour. Probably a moron drove or stepped out in front of a train.

Conduit of Blight is one of the main routes for the accursed light-rail road-blocks….uhm, “trains.” They get in the way of everything and slow traffic on the main drags inexcusably.

This being Arizona — Home of the Rabid Driver — morons dart around the things and out in front of them and…HOOOlleee mackerel! You wanna talk about traffic hazards? Egad!!

That’s why I won’t drive on 19th Avenue, Camelback, or Central Avenue: not  along any stretch where the accursed light-rail trains run. Those fine politically correct conveyances have turned all of those main drags into clogged messes.

This adds considerably to the congestion and the frustration factor. Basically, to keep from tearing out all your hair, you have to drive anywhere from half-a-mile to a full mile out of your way to avoid the tangles along CofB .

Hmmmm… Speaking the local road-morons…someone just cruised up the alley behind our backyard. Sounded like they stopped at the trash cans or nearby. So…did they dump their trash outside my gate (again)? Fill up the freshly emptied garbage can with a gigantic pile of debris (again)?

Can’t tell by peering over the wall.

And so…awayyyyyyy!

Nope! If they dumped it in any of the other trash cans, it wasn’t here.

And speaking of trash accumulation:

Arizonans are now required to replace their (perfectly valid…) driver’s licenses with a new annoyance called a “Real ID.”

Jayzus Aitch Keeeerist! If the card with  your photo on it, acquired by taking a test and standing in line a good 40 minutes, does not suffice to show you’re who you say you are, then NOW what is?

***

That notwithstanding…

It’s an incredibly BEAUTIFUL day. Clear, with a few fluffy, cottony clouds drifting overhead, and cool.

Yea verily, I’m even thinking of getting off my duff and trekking around the nearby North Mountain Park.

Maybe.

But maybe not. The last couple of times I went hiking up there alone…well… I swore never to do that again. At one point I had to dodge down into an arroyo, tuck my  bright blue backpack underneath me and lie down on it, and pray the jerk who started following me didn’t see where I went after I ran around a bend.

No kidding. The guy stood on the trail a good ten or fifteen minutes, scanning the landscape and altogether too obviously searching for me.

{sigh} This is why every woman needs a German shepherd…

Good (not quite) Morning, Arizona!

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Ugh! It’s all of 11:30 at night — not quite: 11:26, to be precise — and the cops are buzzing the suburb just to the north of us, hollering down at the perps through a loudspeaker. Good Morning, America, eh?

That district is a high-crime area. Every now and again, yet another chase ensues up there. This could be entertaining, if it were not so common that it’s become routine.

Ruby is quiescent, so presumably whoever they’re after hasn’t made it down into the ‘Hood yet. If the cops don’t catch him, though, he will — pretty quick.

Grrrrrr! I am NOT in the mood to be kept awake by cops-&-robbers antics. Enjoying a little ailment that’s making me quite uncomfortable — whenever the doctors’ offices open tomorrow, I’ve gotta call one of them and make an appointment. It would help a lot if I could get a few hours’ sleep tonight.

Doesn’t sound like that’s gonna happen, though.

Let’s see what the “police incidents” page sez…

Helle’s belles! Here’s a shooting at  a Walmart. Apparently the perp took off… But it doesn’t look like this is our current boy: that episode took place around 5:00 p.m. It’s almost midnight now.

Welp…there’s always something going on up there. Keeps life interesting.

I guess…

Make. It. Stop, Lord!

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Lock on the side gate: busted.

Latch on the kitchen door: busted.

Nails on both index fingers: lifting off their beds. Hurts.

Drag my computer into the bedroom, so at least I can put my feet up while playing at blogging and waiting for the locksmith: the phone’s gone.

Search search search around the house. Finally find a phone extension. drag it to bedroom; drop it in its cradle.

Phone jangles: repairman. Says he’s on his way.

Coffee: stone cold.

*****

Adorably handsome repair-dude shows up at the front door.

{sigh!}
Can I carry your tool kit for you all day?
<3

***

He charges off to Home Depot, there to do battle in the hardware department. He apparently imagines I’ll be irked because his bosses charge me enough to cover his gas and his time.

DUDE! If only they knew how much I’d be willing to pay to get you to do this job!

Fortunately, they don’t…

Spavined hip: EXCRUCIATING!

Don’t get old, whatever ya do. When you’re old, you hurt all the time.

Hmmm…

Y’know, another little pain that afflicts you in your old age is sentimentality.

Yesterday, I left the Dog Chariot off at the repair shop up on the corner. Getting home, then, required me to walk through the neighborhood of aging 1950s tract houses that stands just to the north of the ‘Hood.

Gosh, but construction was ticky-tacky in the Good Ole Days!

Prob’ly no worse than it is today, when you come down to it. Tract housing is tract housing is tract housing: is, was, and ever shall be. 😀

Walked past the former home of a favorite old neighbor. WHAT   a nice man! He and his equally pleasant wife moved out generations ago…I wanna say they moved into an old-folkerie. But don’t recall the details.

Sure do miss them, though. They were as nice as you could get.

****

Something there is about the modern American custom of locking up the elderly in old-folkeries. Ugh! What a fate to look forward to!

For what it costs to live in an old folks’ prison, you could hire someone to come in every day, pick up after you, fix the days’ meals, drive you to the grocery store or the quack…  Why lock yourself up to get those privileges?

Learned this from The Cleaning Lady from Heaven, who (it develops) has done exactly that kind of thing.

So…I sit around wondering about my father: could he have stayed in his cute little Sun City home until he arrived at his last days and hours?

Hm.

Possibly. But we have this huge difference between him and me: he went to sea all his adult life. Ran away from home at 17, lied about his age, and joined the Navy. From there on, he shipped out by way of making his living.

Hence, two major differences, temperamentally, between him and me:

* He did not mind institutional living. For him: bad food, annoying noise from fellow inmates, daily schedules determined by someone else: those were just normal life. For me: that kinda stuff drives me nuts.

* And he had a wife (until she smoked herself into the grave). She did the shopping. She did the cooking. She did the cleaning. She did the budgeting. She organized their social life.

Hm. As for moi…. I have no problem with cooking — actually, I rather enjoy it. I hire out the cleaning, the yardwork, and the bookkeeping. As for a social life…whazzat?

****
Ah hah!

Here’s part of my social life, right now: An adorable young workman.

He’s here to replace the worn-out deadbolt on the back door.

That’s good.

Also good: he’s more than adequately scenic.

*********

The gorgeous creature replaced the kaput deadbolt — and did so with a piece that matches the rest of the kitchen hardware in color and finish. To accomplish that, he made a trek to Home Depot, one of my very least favorite activities.

Came back with a new lock set, took out the sad old one, installed the new one…et voilà!

So…hmmmmmmmm…

Maybe we don’t wanna make it ALL stop, Dear Lord…

😀

E-freakin’ NUFF

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Hey there, Sprouts management: lissen up!

I quit!!!!! Those weekly, biweekly, even triweekly trips to the beloved neighborhood Sprouts?

DONE!

GONE!!

NO FREAKIN’ MORE!!!!

This afternoon’s gamut-run marked THE LAST TIME, absolutely positively THE last time I will shop in the Sprouts just down the street from my house.

NEVER….

fukkin’

AGAIN

You cannot go into or come out of that store without being hustled by panhandlers.

And y’know what?

As a woman alone, the LAST effin’ thing I want, as I head home from the grocery store, is to be hustled by panhandlers.

Some of whom are bloody aggressive.

Today was it. I am simply NOT GOING INTO the Sprouts at 19th Avenue and Northern, ever again. And NOT COMING out of the Sprouts at 19th and Northern, ever again.

No. No way. No how. Never fukkin’ ever again.

*********************
LOL!!
*********************

Quite the li’l hissy-fit, eh?

I’m good at that. 😀

Well…one does hafta say that the constant hustle from the panhandlers at our neighborhood stores is…well…a bit of a nuisance. 😀

Across the street from the Sprouts et al., the Albertson’s has hired a full-time, armed (!!) guard to stand out in front and chase off the pests. That is, I’ll say, the main reason I shop there. Otherwise, I’d never go into the shopping center at all.

But the time is fast approaching when a ten-minute saving on the drive will not be worth the hassle of shopping in those stores.

Then what???

I will say, the main reason I still live in town — that is, in the central parts of the city — is to be close to routine shopping…to avoid the endless annoying drives.

***

My friend VickyC lives in a beautiful old — as in “seriously, elegantly antique” — house in the historic mid-town district. I’d love to have that place!

{ahem!} But maybe not love so much the burglars, the sex perverts, the constant airline noise, the police and ambulance sirens, the traffic noise, the… Aggghhh!

Too bad those districts can’t be a) safer and b) quieter! 😀

We used to live in that area. Never again!

You shouldn’t HAVE to own a live-in German shepherd and keep a pistol stored under the sofa cushions to feel safe in your home.

Holeee Shee-ut…

by

Waiting for the cops to show up.

And waiting…and waiting…and waiting….

Some charmer was sniffing around the front and the east side of the house. Seems to be gone now.

After SDXB chased off his burglars — caught them in the living room and waved his pistol at them — he called the cops. Said it was over 40 minutes before they showed up. At two in the morning…

That was a couple years ago…and one of the immediate causes for his moving to lovely, boring Sun City.

No sign of a gendarme here. Haven’t been tracking the wait time….

**
Okay
They finally appear.
***

Well, one lonely cop shows up. By the time he gets here, there’s not a soul around. Ruby is quiescent. Presumably our visitor has moved on.

I hope.

Garrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!
Dammit, I have got to get out to the range and practice with my father’s pistol!!!

More to the point, I probably need to get a shotgun. Much easier to hit an uninvited visitor.

Cripes! Here’s a cop copter, a couple blocks to the north of us. That suggests Josie must have called them, too.

A uniformed officer showed up at the door about ten minutes after I called. That’s darned good  response time — usually it takes them at least twenty minutes to surface.

Phoenix…
What a garden spot!