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Another Unlovely Day in Arizona…

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“…Leave us all NOT enjoy it.” 

Ugh. Not yet 9:00 in the morning and it’s 100 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Some asshole has messed up my watering system. Spent altogether too much time trying to undo that fiasco and get water going on the plants. (Any amount of time on that mess is too much time…). Time spent in ungodly heat.

Goddammit! I hope it wasn’t Gerardo or one of his guys who did this! If I find out that’s the case, he is sooooooo fired!

Kinda doubt it, though. He has worked here for years, and nothing like this has happened before. I reckon it must have been a service man or a prowler.

How to keep any such worthies out of the backyard escapes me, though. The guys from the power company and the city water department have to get back there to fiddle with things. They’ve never done anything like this before, and since I’ve done nothing to offend them, I kinda doubt the perp was any of those guys.

Problem is, they have to get back there to do their job. So I can’t change the locks on the gates…it will keep them out as well as the sh!thead who f*cked up the watering system.

So now I’ve somehow got to catch Gerardo the next time he surfaces here — or else call him on the phone and pester him. He’ll need to untangle that mess and get the system working properly again. And…won’t he be thrilled!

Maybe I could sneak a motion-sensitive camera back there. It would run whenever ANYone strolled into the backyard, so would rack up Gawd Only Knows how much time wasted studying the images. But at least it might catch the jerk.

Hm. Another thought: how about installing a motion-sensitive bell back there? Then anyone who walked into the backyard would cause it to ring BING-BONG inside the house…then (assuming I was home at the time) I could see who was roaming around.

Or…I could just post a sign reading “SMILE! YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA!”

Chortle! If the jerk believed it, maybe he’d stand down.

WHO would do such a thing??????

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Holeeee GAWD!  I just went out in back and discovered that ALL of the watering system has been turned off.

When, I do not know. It sure as hell wasn’t turned off by me. Not in 110-degree heat, of that  you may be sure.

So either one of the yard dudes did it (not bloody likely) or some visiting workman vandalized my yard.

Think I caught it (I hope) in time to save at least some of the plantings. Just now, water is POURING to the citrus trees. They’re bone-dry…normally get water a couple times a week. But forgodsake: the hedges? The citrus trees — ALL of them? The climbing roses? The cat’s-claw vines in gay abandon….

WHAT KIND OF PERSON WOULD DO A THING LIKE THAT???

They had to have known what they were doing…because they turned off ALL the watering zones!  There’s half a dozen of them!!

And it has to have been someone who had a key, because the back gate is kept locked.

Holeeee shee-ut!

Well…I guess I’ll need to have all the locks on the exterior gates changed….how many is that?  Let’s see…

1…1…1…in back…plus the garage side door. That’s four. Oh, shee-ut! What d’you suppose it’ll cost to have a locksmith come in and do that?

More than I want to pay, you can bet. About four times more than I want to pay. 😮

Godlmighty. I hope they didn’t put any kind of poison on the trees and vines.

The plants look OK just now… Maybe the jerk figured just turning off the water to them would do the trick, in 110-degree heat.

Ohhhh man!  The hoses are POURING the water to them right now. It’s getting dark out, so I’m gonna have to turn off the faucets pretty soon. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll have to get back out there and turn the water back on.

This defies belief!

Why would anybody do such a thing????

Who’s That Knockin’ at My Door?

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Just realized…. These days, I never answer the door when somebody comes a-knocking. Or a-doorbell ringing, either.

Seriously: it used to be — back in the Dark Ages — that when you went to someone’s house and rang the bell or knocked on the door, they answered by opening the door(!!) and greeting you. Today, I won’t open the door unless I know who’s out there.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. My front door is secured by a heavy-duty prison-like screen door, on the outside of the usual decoratively wooden door. So, the exterior door — the real one — has a set of bars and outside that, a thick sheet of solid metal screen. Getting through that would not be easy!

My next-door neighbor has a camera installed above the front door. It relays an image of any caller to a screen inside the door. And no, she won’t answer the door unless she knows who you are and why you’re there.

Awful that we have to be that scared, isn’t it?

One might say times have changed and so our door-answering customs have changed…the implication being that in the good ole’ days you didn’t have to worry about who or what was out on the doorstep.

But no. I don’t think the folks who show up at your door are any different than they used to be. If they’re not a friend or neighbor, then they’re trying to sell you something or (of late) they’re census takers, surveying the locals. It’s a rare bird that poses a real threat.

That notwithstanding: These days I peer out a window before I go to the door. If I don’t recognize the person, I don’t answer. Or else I holler through the window to ask them what they want — and nine times out of ten, send them away.

Now I will say: I don’t want to be hustled by some door-to-door seller. Period. So one reason that door doesn’t get answered is to make it easier to repel those jerks. As for census takers and the like: they need to show me a mighty authentic-looking ID to get me to the door.

Fine times we live in, eh?

Eeeek-a-Dawg!!!

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Ohhhh my goodness!  This evening I truly thought the Pool Dude had left the side gate open, that Ruby had found it, and that she’d taken off for Yuma!

Couldn’t find her when I went to call her in for the night. 

The back door to the house, in lovely weather like we’re having now, hangs open most of the time, so she comes and goes as she pleases. Consequently, the side gate to the yard is normally closed and latched.

But…Pool Dude was here. What does he know of dogs and of gates???

This evening she disappeared from view. Didn’t come to call. Ohhhhhhh sheee-ut!

And yes, the side gate was unlatched.

Ho-leeee shee-ut!!

Called and called.

No dawg.

Went inside to put on the clodhoppers, so as to go out through that gate and trot off down the road, calling and calling and calling…no doubt fruitlessly.

Just when I got back to the side yard, though: she surfaced.

No, she had NOT run away down the road.

THANK YOU, GOD!!!!

* * * *

Whew! After this, forgodsake, REMEMBER TO CHECK THAT GATE in the wake of any workman who stumbles into the yard!!!!!

Go-o-o-d Morning, America!

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Just back from a mile-plus peregrination of the ‘Hood, dragged along by my furry boss. How can I count the ways I just wanna sit down and swill a cup of coffee?

Stumble over to the easy chair. Flop down in it. And…

RINGY-DINGY-DINGY!

Goddamned phone. A Goddamned phone solicitor on the other end.

I tell him where to make his next phone call and slam down the receiver.

Honest to Gawd. Phone soliciting should be illegal. Seriously: I realize it’s “freedom of speech” and all. But shouldn’t the rest of us have something like “freedom of privacy” or “freedom of peace and quiet”?

***

The neighborhood park is so lovely! I adore this area. Beautiful, quiet, upscale, affluent, right in the middle of everything

O’course it ain’t perfect. Right across the street from the park stands a house whose occupants fled after a pair of home invaders barged in, grabbed them, tied them up, threw them in the bathtub, and proceeded to loot the house.

So. If you live here…yeah: you keep your doors locked all the time. And you do NOT answer the door unless you know who’s on the other side and what they want.

But then…come ON! No place is safe. Just the other day some sh!thead barged into a madly upscale home in Fountain Hills, a mighty swell dive. And I’ll tellya: before that happened, I would have said Fountain Hills is as staid and secure as you can get, this side of Sun City.

My mother, who was scared of her own shadow, cowered in terror all the time she lived in Sun City. She dwelt behind heavily locked doors and windows. And yet…really…she was less terrorized out there than anywhere else we lived.

Something must have happened to her. If it did, she never told me. But really: you wouldn’t act like that unless you had some reason to be scared.

Me, I find the company of a dog amply reassuring. Ruby is no German shepherd (not by a long shot!). But she does alert whenever anyone comes around.

And really, that’s about all a dog can do for you. You’re the one who has to take care of yourself: get to a safe place, grab your pistol, call the cops, whatEVER.

Ruby: the four-legged burglar alarm.
😀

And I stay here…WHY?

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Jeez.

Lift the dawg onto the bed: Happy Dawg!

Turn on the heating pad, get it warmed up. Happy Human!

Climb into the sack, apply hot heating pad to spavined hip. Happy spavined hip!

Fire up the computer, start to explore the Local Gnus, and….RRRRROOOAAARRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Goddamned cop helicopter blasts over the house.

Presumably in pursuit of an even more goddamned perp…

What a garden spot!

Sick and tired of the unholy racket and crime and nuttiness and shit-headedness here in Lovely Uptown Phoenix.

Truly: if I could move away from here, I’d do it today.

But…but…where on earth would I go? Is there really any place that’s any better, and quieter, any less looney toons than this place?

Frankly, I think not.

One resident, for example, was attacked and apparently kidnapped from one of the most upscale suburban districts in the state. Like the cop said after my own neighbors were grabbed, tied up, and thrown in their bathtub so a pair of home invaders could clean out their house: “They’re everywhere. You can’t get away from them.”

Yeah: I’d remarked to one of the cops that I thought maybe I should sell my house and move to some quieter venue, and that was his response. “Don’t do that! They’re everywhere!”

Ugh.

I need to get Ruby a roommate in the form of a 90-pound German shepherd and me a new toy in the form of a .38…enough is enough!