Coffee heat rising

Shopping

Morning Does Not Become Us…

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Ayup! It’s another gray, soggy morning in (un)lovely Arizona.

Hot
Muggy
Stuffy
Dim
Whatever you touch goes HAYWIRE

Why is that? The Haywire Effect, I mean. Most of the time, life the universe and all that goes along peaceably enough. But nay verily! Not today!

It truly is an unpleasant morning. Hot and overcast. The air: just sticky. 

Ruby and I need some grocery-store loot. But what with His Lordship having kiped my car, I would have to walk to the nearest store, a quarter-mile or more from the Funny Farm. And weirdly enough, I do NOT want to traipse around out there in that wet, soggy heat.

Blech!!!  I may call our Uber guy a little later…see if I can persuade him to schlep me to a grocer and then sit around twiddling his thumbs while I traipse through the store. Just think how well THAT will go over.

Oh, well. Later. Some things will wait until later.

Much later.

I had planned to pester M’hijito this morning by jangling up his phone and inviting him to visit the Old-Folkerie of my father’s choice, Orangewood: now much spiffed up since his day. And, you can bet, much increased in price. They gave it a pricier-sounding name, too: The Terraces. La de da!

How can I count the ways I do not want to live in an institution?

Almost as many ways as I don’t want to live in an ordinary, noisy, boring, annoying apartment house.

Ohhhh well. The Funny Farm continues in excellent shape. It’s paid for. The neighborhood is relatively safe (except for Gangland Central, a couple miles to the north). All that’s lacking is a car (my son having extracted mine)…and given our location, the truth is that you don’t need a car here to get by just fine.

Frankly… I’m now thinking that it would cost a whole lot less and and annoy me a whole lot less to hire workers to come in and provide the services that you get from an Orangewood-style old-folks’ warehouse.

Roof over head…much nicer and much more generous than one through which the folks upstairs are blasting their TV set and tromping around.

Proximity — as in “walking distance!” to not one, not two, not three, but FOUR top-notch supermarket and gourmet grocers.

A neighborhood doctor’s office, just sitting there by the sidewalk. Dang! Goodbye to those hour-long drives to the Mayo!

These are perks of living in the middle of a large, middle-class metropolitan area. Most of what you need is within walking distance.

What help would you have to hire?

* Cleaning lady  — already have one of those
* Driver — one lives catty-corner across the street. And he’s among a half-dozen who live in the ‘Hood.
* Yard guys — have those. Have hired them for years.
* Handyman — the guy across the street will do little fix-it tasks for me. But when I tire of imposing on him, the place is swarming with people who will repair and build things.
* The usual array of plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and the like — already have them all on the string.
* Someone to supervise these folks — Heh! This is why we  have a son, right? 😀

****

Hafta say… It really never occurred to me, before this, that I really do not need a car here. This ain’t San Francisco, after all.

But…apparently while I was paying no attention, the place has taken on more and more characteristics of a large, sophisticated city.

“Sophisticated” will never fit Phoenix as an adjective. But “car-free” surely could. The roads are laid out in a standardized grid pattern, north-south streets intersecting and overlaying east-west ones. So wherever you are,  you certainly CAN get there from here. With rather little effort!

As long as you can walk (admittedly, not everyone can…and I won’t be able to, not for much longer), wherever you’re goin’ you indeed can get there on foot…with surprisingly little effort.

What will I do when I seriously can no longer walk five or six blocks?

Well….an Uber driver lives right across the street. Several more live in the neighborhood. I figure their phone numbers will be saved to my iPhone. And when I need a ride, I just press a button and roust one of those guys out!

Not only that, but the major grocers nearby — Albertson’s, Sprouts, El Rancho — have taken to delivering groceries!!! All you have to do is call up a web page, charge up a passel of products, and stand back. Shortly, they’ll appear at your door with a week’s worth of food and household loot.

Et voilà. Conveniences like these will — I think…I hope — delay having to move into an old-folkerie for several years. Yeah…

I hope.

And moving on…

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Okay, so our call to the volunteer group that supposedly will help you get groceries and the like when you’re carless in Gaza: that was a FAIL.

What to do next?

M’hijito has offered to come over and get groceries for me. That is an exceptionally generous offer!!  As we all know, he has other things to do besides run errands for his mutther.

Other options:

  • Hire Wonder-Cleaning-Lady to make grocery-store runs for me. She comes in once a week anyway…maybe she’d be willing, for a little extra $$$, to pick up some things for me on the way here.
  • Try to get one of the grocery stores to deliver. Apparently, some of them will do so.
  • Give up! and hike to the nearest store through the unholy heat, stock up, haul the stuff home through the unholy heat.

If there’s another choice, I sure don’t know what it is. 

GRONK! Another sylvan day in Arizona

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Grrrr!!!  I AIN’T GOIN’!!! No, nope, nooooo way! Not goin’ out in that unholy swampy heat to hike three blocks to a grocery store. The dawg and I can go hungry, by dayum!

Truth to tell, neither of us is about to go hungry. The larder has enough dog & human food to tide us over for several days. After which, we may hope, my present spate of crabbiness will have passed.

Seriously: What DO we need?

* Not dog food: three or four cans lurk in the storage room.
* Not human food. What remains on the shelves may not be the most delicious chow on the planet, but it’s perfectly OK and it’s unspoiled.
* Not wine. We’re on the wagon.
* Not cleaning goods. Everything is in stock.
* Not anything that I can think of, offhand.

And I figure that if you can’t think of it, you must not need it very badly. 😀

Hope that’s true, because I just made up my mind to skip this morning’s planned grocery junket.

Seriously: The weather is REVOLTING this morning. Hot, soggy, hazy, uggh-leee. Probably won’t be any better tomorrow…but if I can put off this hiking trip until tomorrow, maybe I’ll resent it a little less

***

Check this out: Duet: Partners in Health and Aging.  Apparently this is a volunteer group that will send folks out to do your grocery shopping or drive you around the city or whatever.

I’ve tried to reach them: no one answers the phone at their office. Apparently the “group” of volunteers isn’t large enough to man the phones. But…what the hey! Later today, I’ll try again.

If I can foist the annoying errands onto someone else, that will solve a HUGE  part of the problems poised by those idiots at the Mayo Clinic having put the kaibosh on my driver’s license.

There may be some other volunteer organization of this ilk. If today’s effort to get through to Duet fails, I’ll see if anyone else out there is in the free-help biz.

*****  Later ****

Yes…I did get through to someone at Duet.

To avail oneself of their benefits, you have to sign up with them and give them a bunch of private information. And they demand your phone number.

I explained that, because of the outrageous number of nuisance calls I get — day in and day out — I’ve had to block incoming from all but a few area codes.

He just didn’t seem to “get it.” Truly: I don’t think he understood what I was saying:  eight or ten nuisance calls a day naturally leads to one rejecting most incoming calls.

So…I don’t expect to get far with that bunch.

Ohhhh well. The world hasn’t ended yet. Probably won’t, in the near future.

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again…

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Or “still”…  Or something. 

Sunday…

The AC has been pounding away. Don’t even THINK of asking what the power bill is likely to be this month. Probably two or three hundred bucks. But…don’t think about it. No. No thinking!!

Today is Sunday. If I had any sense, I’d surface down at the church and rebuild old friendships. Because…well…I do need some human company. No question of it.

But…my son has kiped my car. 

I have no way to get down to the church except on a bus, a highly questionable ride.  Plus just now, as we scribble, the temp in the shade of the back porch is A HUNDRED AND FIVE DEGREES.

No way in Hell am I traipsing 16 blocks eastward to the bus stop and standing around in that heat until a south-bound ride comes along. If a ride comes along.

Now…yes, it IS true that if I would get what passes for my act together, I could lasso a fellow church-goer into picking me up and schlepping me down to All Saints. But…that would be…you know…work. 

It also would be a great deal nervier than I happen to feel just now.

Gasp! I keep thinking it’s hotter than the hubs in the house. But that really isn’t quite the case. What’s happening is…it’s just a little humid in here. And in Arizona, you don’t have to get very  humid to make the heat feel like a blast furnace. That would be because it IS a blast furnace….

Perusing real estate ads in Sun City. Y’know, the house that I’m in was built by the same developer who built out most of Sun City. And you can see the similarity!  My house looks surprisingly like a Sun City shack.

Mine is rather better built, though. The price range in North Central is far higher than westside locations will support, and so Del Webb — the Sun City guy — produced neighborhoods here that echo the look of Sun City, but…well… The houses here are sturdier, better insulated, more diversely designed. Even though the exteriors look surprisingly similar.

***

And now it’s Monday…

***

Started this a while ago. Lost track. Wandered off. Fell Asleep. Who knows what else…

Splendidly HORRIBLE morning out there. Hot (95 degrees in the shade of the back patio), high overcast, damp, and sticky.

Friend is slated to come over this noon, thereupon to go out to lunch. Hope she does indeed surface: Nothing like a convenable human to make life more or less livable!

Maybe I should offer to fix lunch here, so we don’t have to go out in that swamp. Don’t have much, though. And without a car, you can be sure I don’t feel like walking to a grocery store.

Hmmmm….

Not to say {chortle!}  Just stuck a wonderfully stupid sign on the front security door, telling the accursed door-to-door solicitors to take a flying F at the moon.

Well. Ahem.. Possibly not that explicitly. It asks that they not ring the doorbell, because someone inside is ill.

I’m ill, all right: SICK of nuisance phone and door-to-door solicitors pestering me several times a day.

LOL! My friend already knows I’m crazy. This visit will confirm her suspicions.

****

Grrrrrr!!! Speaking of nuisances, I’ve got a whole, large bag of beautiful frozen shrimp in the fridge…and can’t tell whether they’re the recalled, contaminated variety or not.

It doesn’t LOOK like they are, though. The brand name on the package doesn’t appear to be associated with the bad shrimp.

Hope not. Because I really, REALLY don’t want to go traipsing out in the heat to buy more dinner food. Nor do I want to throw out God only knows how many dollars worth of chow.

***

LOL!!!!!

Welp…there was a reason I didn’t want to traipse out in the heat to pick up chow for dinner.

It is too goddamn hot to make it all the way to the grocery store!!!

Or even halfway to the damn grocery store!

Wunderground claims it’s only 106 out there. And in fact, that’s exactly what the back-porch thermometer says, right now: 106 degrees.

I find that a little hard to believe: if asked, I’d have said it was 110 or a bit higher. But…heh! I are a English major: I are not a thermometer!

So. Half an hour ago, I set out for the supermarket on Gangbanger’s way, there to buy some light chow and a bottle of white wine. And as you can no doubt intuit: didn’t make it! 

Gave up before I got a block from the shack. Turned around. Came back.

Thank all the gods for iced water!

😀

Thinking of asking Wonder Cleaning-Lady to drive me up to the store. She’s here banging around the house just now. But…but…that seems like a little much to ask. As if she weren’t knocking herself out quite enough!

The local grocery stores open at 7:00 a.m. So..duhhhhh! The answer to this conundrum is to show up at the Sprouts or the Albertson’s door at 7:00 a.m.

How hard IS that?????

Some of these establishments are now delivering. If I really wanted to bestir myself, I could call one of them and get stuff sent over.

But that has a fundamental drawback: Americans.

Seriously! 😀  Americans by and large don’t cook with fresh food — they heat junk that comes in cans and boxes. S-O-O…they don’t know how to pick out fresh fruit and vegetables. Ask them to bring you a fresh head of romaine, and they  just grab whatever’s on top of the pile in the grocery-store bin. And that…well…tends not to be good.

******

Whooooaaaaa! Look up the local Albertson’s on Conduit of Blight, and you see they open at SIX a.m., not at seven!

Hot dayum!

(And we DO mean “hot”!)

This opens a whole new door. 

At 6:00 o’clock, it’s already hot here, but it’s not fukkin homicidal. If I show up with a list and my roller-cart, I should be able to get outta there by 6:30 — surely no later than 6:45 or 7:00 a.m. The walk home is only 20 or 30 minutes.

That means I can get back here before the heat turns truly homicidal! 

Think o’ that!!!

Not a very pleasant way to start the day. But it sure beats hiking through 100-degree heat! If I can get in the door by 6:15 a.m., I can get back to the Funny Farm by 7:00…maybe earlier than that.

At 7 o’clock, the heat will be in the 90s. But that sure ain’t 110. 

Hot enough to fry your brain…if you still have one…

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WILL WordPress let me back in this time???

Hmmmmmm…..  The answer would appear to be “Yep!” But…let us hold our wind and water…we don’t KNOW that it will let me post this squib. Ohhhh well...got nothin’ else to do just now.

M’hijito, my honored son, just called on the horn. He’s on his way out of town and all worried that I’m not competent to buy a bag of groceries. Or, more to the point, that I’ll try to walk to the grocery store (a distance of about three blocks) in the broiling heat.

{chortle!}  What CAN one say?

* Yes, I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.
* I’ll call Uber and ask them to drive me the three blocks to the store.
* Don’t worry: if the dawg and I run out of food before you get back, we’ll just do without until you get here.
* Pass me the goddam bottle of wine.

See, the problem I have these days is that people don’t seem to recognize when I’m kidding. And I don’t understand why. ‘Cause I’ve always been something of a kidder. Why isn’t it obvious anymore?

Well, to be honest (and no, NOT kidding this time), it’s 105 degrees out there. And no, I wouldn’t be happy about my 80-ish mother wandering around, alone, in 105-degree heat.

And that’s what we’ve got right now, in the balmy shade of the back patio: 105 degrees. Hevvin only knows what it is in the full sun. 

But…y’know…I’m stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid.

Of course I’m not about to junket up Conduit of Blight Blvd and across the parking lot at Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North through 105-degree heat. Soooo…WHY does he think I might actually be that stupid?

***

Okay….let us imagine some part of the agèd brain is still functional. How ARE we gonna get the chow we need?

Here in the ‘Hood, we have several possibilities for the agèd and the witless:

* Uber. This neighborhood is overrun with Uber cabs. If I wanted someone to drive me to a grocery store RIGHT NOW, I could call Uber.

* A train. It rides on tracks that run north and south past the Funny Farm, less than three blocks to the west.

* Busses. They run on the same thoroughfare; just not as often.

* Feet. The shopping center is only three blocks up to the north! Even in the blasting heat, a person in normal health (as I happen to be) is not going to expire from walking that far.

By the same token, neither am I about to pay a bus or a train to carry me three blocks to a store. Gimme a break!

* Time and the River Flowing… As a practical matter, in about six hours the sun will have gone down, the air will be much cooler, and walking up to that shopping center will be a simple and safe matter.

Yeah…WAIT until the sun goes down, forgodsake! Or start before the sun gets high enough to fry the landscape! How hard is that?

Oh well. Truth to tell, I wouldn’t have been real happy about my mother gallivanting in 105-degree heat. So I can’t bellyache too much!

Further truth to tell, though, the issue is not the ambient temperature. It’s the ambient humidity.

Ugh!!! As we scribble, it’s overcast out there (got that?: 105 degrees and cloudy!). And yeah, that does make for some real unpleasant heat — even dangerous heat.

So…yeah. Afraid it’s not a good afternoon to trot on over to the Albertson’s.

Deliver me the chow!

by

Okay, here we are in the 21st century, whither Yours Truly just arrived. 

As we scribble, it is hotter than the hubs of Hades here in lovely uptown Phoenix. I need to go to a grocery store: the only chow with which our shelves are well stocked just now is…yeah…dog food!

The human needs meat. It needs veggies. It needs fruit. It needs pasta. And it craves a glass of wine.

For some time, I’ve known that the local Sprouts will deliver. So, I gather, will Albertson’s. But I haven’t taken advantage of these alleged services, because…well…let’s be frank: Learning something new feels like more trouble than it’s worth these days.

My charming son has absconded with my car. Apparently he thinks that 80 is too old to be navigating the homicidal streets of Phoenix with much hope of survival. Ohhhhkayyyy…. Wanna know something? HE CAN HAVE THE THING! Because the real horror — which he seems to have overlooked — is that I don’t need that car to get around. 

Y’know… We have Uber. We have a wonderful shiny new lightrail that whizzes right up Main Drag West. We even still have old-fashioned boring busses. Dreary little hickish Phoenix has turned into a big city…and lo! These days we have big-city amenities.

Dudes and dudettes! We don’t need no steenking car!  :-D

Nevertheless, as we scribble, the outdoor thermometer reads 109 degrees in the shade of the (north-facing!) back porch. And y’know what I am NOT gonna do?

I am NOT gonna walk the two or three blocks to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s. NOT A FREAKIN’ CHANCE!  Nay verily: I’m gonna call Sprouts and order the meat and the veggies and the bottle of wine I crave.

Let’s see how they do! 😀

Americans are not good with fresh produce: they don’t know what good fruits and veggies look like. So…we shall see if Sprouts’ staff can overcome that cultural challenge. But if they can…I may never go into a grocery store again! 

😀  😀  😀  😀

Seriously: I do hate grocery shopping. If store staff can get their act together well enough to select decent produce, this ole’ lady will cheerfully hire them to do so.

The main problem will be scraping together enough cash to tip these folks — no, I do NOT carry cash with me. I put everything on charge or debit cards. And no, I do do NOT want to traipse across the city to the credit union to extract cash dollars from my bank account.

But there’s gotta be a way around that. We’ll figure out what it is. Maybe they’ll let me add a tip to the bill.

Heh!  Y’know, when we stayed in London, we didn’t own a vehicle. ‘Twasn’t necessary: busses and cabs would take you wherever you pleased in the city. If we wanted to take a weekend sight-seeing junket into the countryside, we’d rent a car.

Between  you’n’me, I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same here. What with Uber, why do you need to grace your garage with a hole in the ground into which to pour cash?? 

The Sprouts, the Fry’s, and the Albertson’s are no further from my house than were any of the stores in London — in fact, they may be closer. London had trains: we have trains. London had busses: we have busses. London had taxicabs: we have taxicabs. So…uhmmmm….

Yeah: at the risk of repeating oneself: why do you need to grace your garage with a hole in the ground into which to pour cash??

{Cackle!} Why do you need a damn garage at all????