Coffee heat rising

Shopping

BING BONG!

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Amazon Dude! He/She/It just left a bag of fine, overpriced dry dog food on the doorstep.

M’Hijito was supposed to take me to the local supermarket to pick up…the same. I’d forgotten I’d ordered the stuff online.

He hasn’t shown up yet. So….that gives me a paroxysm of Motherly Worry, but on the other hand, it relieves me of one last hassle of the day.

M’Hijito works out of his house, mostly online and on the phone for his vast employer. This keeps him ludicrously busy (as in it would drive me crazy!). So I expect he’s rassling with his bosses’ clients just now. WhatEVER: this delivery means I don’t have to traipse to the hated grocery store. Ruby has her food and my feet are comfortably ensconced on the hassock.

😀

I think what I’ll do, by way of strategy, if we find he’s not able to come over and schlep me to the store for the other stuff, is just put that chore off until morning. They open at 6:00 a.m., which provides a good shot at walking over there before it gets too hot. Got about a dozen items to buy…

But, this new roller-cart I bought is just the business! The thing makes it possible to grab a week’s worth shopping items and ROLL THEM HOME. Free of hassle. Free of the damn car. Free of everything except the occasional nuisance sh!thead.

Think I’ll wait, though, until tomorrow, partly to dodge the day’s-end heat and partly to dodge the legions of sh!t-heads. If I get to the store as dawn cracks, I should be able to get home before the panhandlers hit the streets.

Jeez. What a place we live in!

 

Beerless in Gaza…

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Well, that was one of the weirder junkets I’ve made in the past few years. 😀

It went like this:

* Out the door
* Wander up Main Drag West past the Prod church
* Stroll on through the Albertson’s, planning to buy…
*…to buy?
*…to buy WHAT?
*How’s about picking up a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! Too much bother to carry home
* Exit Albertson’s, empty-handed
* Stroll around shopping center
* See exactly nothing of interest
* Walk back to Main Drag West toward the house
* Pass Prod church again
* Enjoy kids playing outside in their yards
* Hike up toward the Funny Farm
* Arrive back at the Funny Farm
* Shouldn’t I have bought a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! What on earth for? I’m gonna hike six blocks, then  turn around and hike six blocks back home, to buy…to buy…what? A bottle of beer?

I’m crazy. but I’m not THAT crazy. 😀

Seriously: It was a pleasant short hike on a beautiful afternoon, to buy…NOTHING. 

Yet there was something strangely pleasing about having gotten out of the house, strolled a half-mile down to the store, strolled another half-mile home, and spent NOTHING on anything! 

Meanwhile, there in the yards we have kids playing, grown-ups puttering, pooches frolicking, soft wind blowing…what a perfect afternoon!

This, I need to do more often!

YOWCH!!!!

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Ouch, every which way from Sunday! In the hip. In the feet. In spavined fingers… Every goddamwhich way from Sunday!

Thank HEAVEN for Amazon! Honestly: I have NO idea how on earth I would cope if somehow I had to traipse to the store for everygoddamthing the dog and I need. Just walking up the hallway between the bedroom and the kitchen hurts, HURTS, and then HURTS some more!

At any rate, now we have a new bag of dawg food ordered. Yes: WITHOUT having to pay for an Uber ride, WITHOUT having to hike four blocks (+++) to the stores, WITHOUT damn near crippling my idiot self to retrieve a couple of ordinary, boring daily items.

So, now we’re set for several more days. Much is it to be hoped that by then I’ll be recovered enough from whatever ails me to negotiate the neighborhood shopping.

We can’t easily get fresh food by ordering it on Amazon. But…really, that only needs to be purchased about once a week. And we’ve discovered a fine GODSEND here in the ‘Hood: a guy directly across the street(!!!) is driving an Uber cab!!!!

Wow: what incredible luck, eh?

At any rate, now all I have to do is stumble over to his house and beg him to schlep me around, and voilà! Problem solved.

Great galloping ZOT, am I tired of hurting. 

Long as I’m laying on the bed, the body seems sorta OK — but o’course, wouldn’cha know: that’s an illusion. The instant I get off the sack...ohhhhh my gawd! The back hurts. the hip hurts, the feet hurt, the…everygoddamthing hurts.

Well…it doesn’t seem to be terminal, anyway. With any luck, in a few days Whatever This Is will settle down, and then the Dawg and I can go on about our dog-‘n’-human business in our wonted fashion.

In the meantime… Kid, don’t get old. Gettin’ old freakin HURTS!

Tromping, Endlessly Tromping…

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For reasons unknown to The Olde Bat, this afternoon my right hip is spavined. And Boy! Does it hurt! 

No idea why: don’t recall slipping or tripping or sleeping cattywampus. All I know is…I can barely hubble up the damn sidewalk!

Needed to make a grocery-store run this afternoon. The Albertson’s is close: only a few blocks down the road. But man! By the time I got there, scooped up a bag of loot, and headed out of the store, it felt like I’d traipsed halfway to China and back. And I still had to get home!

Finally made it…after seemingly endless limping and limping and limping and limping… Whew! 

So here we are, hunkered in out of the rain (water hasn’t started falling out of the sky yet, but it soon will), chowing down in the company of the Hound, and thinking it will be tomorrow morning before we hobble into the kitchen to load up the dishwasher.

Hmmm…  Here we have news of some monster Gmail hack. Helle’s Belles, I don’t even know what they’re talking about, much less understand what to do about it. Afraid I”m gonna have to shut down all my google mail accounts. And that’ll be the end of that.

{sigh} No question of it: I’ve come unstuck in time. And so I no longer live in our society, with our contemporaries. Not only can I not follow this kinda kee-rap, I don’t want to. That, I think, is the operative feature: I just no longer want to hassle with whatever new monster headache is rolling up the pike.

Y’know what I’d like to do? 

Go way to hell back into the boondocks and buy our ranch back from whoever has it in their grimey hands now. Shut down everything in the flickin’ city. Pack up the car and the clothes and the riding boots and the little dawg and MOVE BACK into the FLICKIN’ MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

Yes.

The Middle of Nowhere looks better and better with each passing day.

* You don’t need a password to get into your mail, because your mail lands in a tin box on a stake at the entry to your ranch.

* You don’t need to hike half your life with a bag of groceries, because you drive into the next town up the road to get to the store.

* You don’t have to keep up with the latest brain-banging technology, because in reality you’re living in the late 19th Century.

* You don’t have to deal with a crazy-making Mayo Clinic staff or a berserk solo practitioner, because there are no damn doctors out there in the middle of nowhere.

* You do not have to cope with a swimming pool that will have to be cleaned (again!!!) tomorrow morning after tonight’s pending storms, because no one in their right mind would have a pool on a ranch in the middle of Wonderful Nowhere.

* You don’t have to figure out how to drag your dawg to the vet, because the only vets out there deal with cows, not corgis.

Gawd spare me, Lord!

Kickin’ & Screamin’…into the 21st Century

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{chortle!} Welp, it looks like I’m gonna be FORCED to come into the (dire!) 21st Century. If you don’t have your own chariot, you now pretty much have to hire a robo-taxi: a driverless monstrosity that requires an A.A. in computer tech to operate.

How CAN I say how much I absolutely positively do NOT want to learn a complicated new system for hiring a cab and getting around the city?

Those ba*tards at the Mayo, egged on by Dear Son, have invalidated my driver’s license. When you live in a hectic L.A.-style city like Phoenix, this  puts the eefus on…just about everything.

Fortunately, because I live smack in the middle of everything, I’ve been getting by mostly on foot: whatever I need is within reasonable walking distance. That would include…

  • A Sprouts
  • An Albertson’s
  • A Fry’s
  • A Walgreen’s
  • A Bookman’s
  • An El Rancho
  • A wine shop
  • A UPS store
  • A computer store
  • A hair stylist
  • A dentist
  • A veterinarian

And  many, many more. The truth is, I don’t need a car to live comfortably and shop easily here.

As long as I’m living in this house, I’m within easy walking distance of everything I need…and then some. Outside of walking distance? Lemme tellya: have we got the robotaxis!!! 

Actually, we still have a few taxis driven  by humans, which I much prefer. ‘Cause I’m still a denizen of the 20th century, right? 😉

Interestingly, the neighborhood seems to be holding its value. We just welcomed the first Black family to our environs…and so it’s much to be hoped that we are in the 21st century and therefore that eventuality will not torpedo our property values. They look like nice folks…and I think they have cute kids.

I’m excited to welcome them and try to make friends with them. And…well…we’ll see how that goes! Even the 21st century is still part of Mittel-America. Time will tell.

 

Never a Frikkin’ Dull Moment

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Now we’re told that a slew of aluminum pots and pans — sold by different retailers under different brand names — will leak lead into your food. Jayzuz! Never a frikkin’ dull moment, eh?

Looks like none of my cookware falls into these categories. Probably because I bought all my spectacularly overpriced pots and pans at Pottery Barn and Macy’s: years ago.  When I had an income…  Sometimes there’s an advantage to paying way too much for that kinda stuff.  Plus I believe mine are all stainless, not aluminum.

How can I count the ways that I don’t wanna get up and start charging around?

Well, it’s only quarter after seven, so Ruby and I can loaf for awhile longer. But soon we’ll have to get on the road for the morning hike around the ‘Hood.

My revered (reverewared?) son came over yesterday afternoon and supervised tha AC guy’s activities. That was a mercy! I wouldn’t have had a chance of climbing up to the roof or tromping around observing what the guy was doing — because I wouldn’t have any idea what he was supposed to be doing.

So just now the system is pounding away. Back porch thermometer says it’s 46° out there. Not unreasonably chill for December. I guess. Doesn’t do much to inspire me to schlep the dawg around the park, though. 😮

This evening we have to traipse to the physical therapists’ gym and waste another couple of hours going hup-hup-hup. I do not see that this routine does anything whatsoever for the hip pain. What works is…yes: time and the river flowing.

Anyway, the aches and pains have faded to near-absence. So I figure that in another week or so I can put my well-exercised little foot down and call a halt to the PT shenanigans.

Meanwhile, in the absence of said aches & pains (most of them, anyhow), I need to hike to the nearby Sprouts this morning. Just what I wanna do… /s/  Still too early and too cold for any such expedition. Probably the dawg and the humann will just climb back into the sack and loaf for a couple more hours.

********

2;10 p.m.

Back from the Sprouts…and the Albertson’s…and various stores in the associated shopping center.

The outfit that sold me the shoes, one of which fell apart, claimed they’d  never sold any such shoes.

R-i-i-i-g-h-t…  Like I buy so many shoes I can’t remember where I get them. 

So I got nicely screwed there. And will never buy anything at that store again.

The skies are vibrating with the roar of military jets charging back and forth. Think most of them are coming out of the Sun City area, which is almost adjacent to Luke Air Force Base. However, a few seem to be lurking on the opposite side of the Valley — the east side, which would not be true if they were Luke planes.

Haven’t seen any nuclear bomb clouds, so I assume we’re not at war. For the nonce.

***

Sit your butt down in an easy chair, fire up the computer, start dorking around online and… RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE * RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE * RINGIE DINGIE DINGIE… Some a$$hole on the line trying to hustle you.

My GAWD but I’m sick of our idiotic phone system

Really, sometimes I think that I ought to just unplug the phones whenever I’m home, unless I’m using them to call out. But..of course…that will mean that friends and business acquaintances will never be able to call in to reach me on the goddam phone.

Let’s see if we can make the phone jangle some more by trying to take a nap between now and this evening’s hup hup hup session…

😀  😮  😀