Coffee heat rising

Delivery? HOT diggety!

Eight o’clock in the morning and already hotter than the Hubs of Hades outside. Without a car, I need to get going RIGHT NOW to hit the Sprouts, the Albertson’s or the Fry’s to buy the groceries I need.

But…but…I also want breakfast. More than I want to go grocery shopping. By far…

The coffee is steeping. What passes for breakfast is ready to come out of the microwave. So…noooooo. Nope: not traipsing to a grocery store at crack of dawn.

And…LO!!!  Here’s a REAL good excuse not to do any traipsing at any time.

Albertson’s, Safeway, and Sprouts will deliver groceries!

Who knew??? 

Now that I know…we’ll be trying that out.

I’m dubious, though. My diet tends to be heavy on fresh produce. And in my experience, Americans know amazingly little about selecting and preparing fresh fruits and vegetables. So whatever those stores deliver is likely to be catch-as-catch-can.

But it’s worth a try.

Imagine! Never having to trudge to the store again!!!  

Woweee!

If one or more of those fine establishments can manage to deliver decent produce, I actually might not need a car. My son could be right!

Even if their staff can’t select decent produce, an Uber guy lives right across the street. He can deliver me over there, maybe for an extra fee help me gather the groceries, and haul the stuff back here. I mean…WOW!

Talk about the lap of luxury, eh?

An alternative might be to pay the Cleaning Lady Par Excellence to drive me to the store. That would work better, because then I could select my own groceries. But it would add to her workload and probably not ingratiate her. Not one…little…bit… 😮

Y’know… When we lived in England, we didn’t own a car. 

In London, a car wasn’t necessary. An unholy number of locals had them and trudged around in them…but…even more rode the Underground or the surface-street busses or…hang onto your hat..walked. 

What if…what if you thought like a Londoner? and behaved like one?

  • You wouldn’t own a car, partly because you couldn’t afford it and partly because you wouldn’t need one.
  • You would ride the busses and trains to and from work.
  • You would stop by a lovely little grocery store on the way home from the transit station; there, you would buy the makings for dinner, plus a bottle of wine.
  • You would eat like royalty, because virtually all of the food you bought would be sterling FRESH.

Well…o’course, we have no Underground. But we DO have the new fancy-dan streetcars, Hot diggety!

And we DO have Uber. The whole damn city is infested with Uber drivers. Hot diggett dawg!

Hmmmmm….. Intriguing!

The only time this would be impractical would be right now: in the dead of summer. Hiking around in 110-degree heat is not the best of all possible strategies.

However, the stores in question open as dawn cracks and stay open until well after dark. You could either start out at six or seven in the morning, or simply ride Ubers during the summer and shift to healthier (and cheaper!) walking when the weather cools.

Huh.

Today, I think, I’ll try the Albertson’s or the Sprouts delivery services. Let’s see how they do.

If they can select decent produce (and I’ll betcha Sprouts can)…well…

If they can, mirabilis! I’ll have groceries delivered here. Once in a blue moon I’ll visit the stores, explore their current offerings, and adjust my delivery lists accordingly.

First, though…I believe I’ll go back to bed for a nap. Was sleepy when I woke up at dawn’s first crack, and now am zombified.

Hotter than a three-dollar cookstove…

…as my father used to say about the lovely weather in the garden spot that was Saudi Arabia.

As we scribble, the back-porch thermometer claims the temperature is 108 in the shade.

Yeah. That’s degrees Fahrenheit.

Ye gawds! It makes Arabia look balmy.

But…but…seriously: it’s 12:30 in the afternoon. Earlier in the day — shortly after the local grocers and farmacias opened, our li’l thermometer was already registering 102.

And yes, that does make Arabia look pretty balmy.

Fortunately, we have actual air-conditioning, rather than the gummy swamp-cooling that Aramco installed in its residents’ homes in Ras Tanura. Even then, it’s damn hot and sticky in here.

Nevertheless, the brain continues to run on overdrive. 

All sorts of original, clever, and…uhm..weird ideas are drifting through my overheated little mind. And in particular, the most significant ones have to do with my son’s adventurous liberation of my car.

Yes.

The garage remains empty.

And y’know what?

I’m finding I just…don’t…give…a…damn. 

This neighborhood is overrun with guys who wanna get rich quick driving for Uber. A nearly brand-new train runs down Main Drag West, one that would drop me off six safe and quiet residential blocks from my son’s house, if I chose to ride it. And the city busses cruise right past the intersection of the nearest feeder street and Central Avenue, which would take me to the front door of the beloved AJ’s market. Or let me off a block from the kid’s house.

Personally, I’d choose Uber if I knew they would show up reliably.

That doesn’t appear to be the case…but…but…yeah. I haven’t tested any such thesis. I will, in the future…probably the slightly cooler future. But if I do find they show up when they say they will, then…well…

Wanna buy a nice used Toyota Venza?

Yeah. Y’know what I think about this caper? That kid did me a huge favor. He’s helping me to get rid of a tank that needs to be serviced (expensively) every six months, that needs to have $3.00/gallon gas pumped into it every time you turn around, that takes up space in a garage that could be used for any number of better purposes, that pollutes the air, that….

Uhm…and how am I gonna get the dog to the vet, in an emergency?

Uber.

Or the kid. He still has his car. If Ruby has to be rushed to a veterinarian, he can come up here and collect her.

Or on foot. A 24-hour veterinary hospital is right down the road: about six or eight blocks, on foot. She weighs all of 25 pounds: I can easily pick her up and carry her there.

Meanwhile, check out these contraptions! I happen to have one of these. As we scribble, it’s now all tricked out with cardboard panels, the easier to haul stuff without dropping anything.

Here in the ‘Hood, we’ve got not one, not two, but three major supermarkets within walking distance: a Fry’s, a Sprouts, and an Albertson’s. I can do most or all of my grocery shopping on foot, without ever leaving the neighborhood. And right across the street dwells an Uber driver. Matter of fact, we’re told the ‘Hood is over-run with Uber drivers.

Heh! I haven’t tested that hypothesis. But it wouldn’t take a mob of wannabe cab drivers to provide plenty of transportation to the nearby shopping. 

Summertime, And the Livin’ Is…

…the livin’ is sauna-like!

😀

You should be here to enjoy a fine, humid 102-degree day… Uhm…well, no…maybe you shouldn’t.

Seriously: it’s like a steam-bath outdoors just now. Hotter than the proverbial hubs, and SOGGY.

It puts the eefus on my plan to walk over to the nearby Sprouts and raid their fruit and veggie bins. I may hire the Uber guy across the street to schlep me over there…but…hmmmm…..  

Don’t think so. The hound and I have plenty of food. The fridge is more than adequately stocked. We surely can wait a day or two.

Besides, what I’m MOST interested in is learning about the new(ish) delivery services of late offered by most of the major grocery stores around here. By way of experiment, I may call the Albertson’s and order up some chow.

Main drawback to that scheme: Americans are not fresh-food folk. Most of us eat packaged or frozen chow. As a result, we have NO CLUE what a decent zucchini squash or head of lettuce or ripe peach is supposed to look like. And since I eat mostly fresh foods (I know how to cook! Isn’t that weird?!?), I’m reluctant to pay to have someone shop for me.

Hmmmm… Uber…Uber…Uber…  I’m beyond fascinated with the whole Uber phenomenon. It reminds me, richly, of our ten-year experience in Saudi Arabia, where Saudi drivers ran a fleet of taxis. They would come right up to your back gate (front yards were bounded by sidewalks and hedges), whisk you down to the commissary, then drive you home and help you haul your bags of groceries into the house.

Not that I would expect an American driver to help haul grocery purchases. But the experience would be similar in many other ways. If it could happen. 😀

Corner of Hell and Hades….

HOOleee keerap!

It was hot when I left the Albertson’s to walk home with a small armful of groceries. My GOD what torture! I hafta tellya…

For sure:  I’ll never buy groceries at that Albertson’s again. As we scribble, it’s 115 in the shade of the back porch. Wunderground says it’s 116.  Out in the middle of an asphalt road, no shelter anywhere to be seen? EASILY 120…very probably more than that

I have never walked through such gawdawful heat…and I grew up in Saudi Arabia, where a 115-degree day was normal.

Today all I wanted was a six-pack of beer and a bottle of white wine. That notwithstanding, the bags weighed more than I wanted to haul through that heat. Asked the clerk if it was OK to borrow a cart and bring it back in the morning.

Well. No. 

So…will I be shopping at Albertson’s again?

Well. No.

Nope. Never again!

A grocery cart typically costs a couple hundred bucks. I can spend that much in a typical trip to a grocery store. Let’s say I make two such trips a month… Today Albertson’s traded $200 for a $400/month loss. For a year’s worth of shopping, that’s $400 x 12, or $4800.

Mighty fancy grocery carts y’got there, Mr. Albertson!

How DO they compete?

Yea, verily: HOW do local stores compete with Amazon?

Just found myself running low on coffee grounds, something I’d ordinarily buy at AJ’s Overpriced Fancy-Dan Grocery Store.

But… but…

* My car has been purloined. No way I can get it back from the kid. And I can’t get to AJ’s without a car, or a 45 minute round trip by bus and hike.

* Until I can rent or buy another car — or threaten the kid with a lawyer (mine croaked over a few weeks ago…) — I’ll either have to take a bus to AJ’s or hire the neighbor’s Uber cab.

* It’s hotter than the hubs of Hades out there, and so you may be sure I’m in no mood to hike six blocks to a bus stop and stand in the 110-degree heat for 30 or 40 minutes waiting for a bus to show up; then repeat in reverse.

* This jacks up the price of a pound of coffee, to the tune of whatever the taxi driver across the street is charging for a ride to AJ’s and back.

Solution? It’s spelled A-M-A-Z-O-N

Mercifully, Amazon does sell fresh (supposedly) coffee beans. So whenever I get into gear, the first chore of the morning will be to order a bag of coffee from there. And here’s my favorite brand…only a little overpriced. Probably about the same as AJ’s charges.

So there’s the question: How do stores like AJ’s and Sprouts compete with Amazon?

Seriously: at some point it’s worth spending an extra buck or two to have stuff delivered to your front door. And the hotter it is outside, the closer that point gets.

July 4, 2025: 7:30 a.m.

Accuweather:  Humidity 50% at 7:37 a.m., wind 3 mph Predicts a high of 103. Yeah…it’s gotta be that already!

Shindig in the park: July 4. Place is overrun with kids and dogs and grown-ups. Shenanigans under way.  IMHO, w-a-a-y-y too hot to be shuffling around out there!

It’s great fun to see all the little kids racing around in the park. All the parents chasing around after them. That place is gonna be mobbed at 8:00 a.m. Ruby and I got our morning doggy-walk done just in the nick of time.

It is sooooo hot and humid over there just now. Feels like lovely Saudi Arabia. At least that happens only a few days a year in Arizona. On the shore of the Persian Gulf, this kind of suffocating weather occupies a good third of the year.

Despite the mile-plus hike, I’ve hurt my hip bad enough that mild exercise doesn’t help. Yea verily: hurts like Hell!

Some years ago, a MayoDoc said I would one day need to have surgery on that thing. Looks like the day has about arrived.

Which raises the obvious question: HOW am I going to manage a four-bedroom house, a third of an acre, a pool, and an active little dog when I’m laid up with a bum hip?

No idea how that’s going to work out. Ruby, I guess, will have to stay at M’jito’s place. She hates that. Sits by the door the whole time she’s there, staring and waiting for her human to come back, open it, walk inside, and rescue her.

Meanwhile, my son — the Emperor of the Universe — has decided I’m too decrepit to be driving safely. (In that, he may very well be right…). So he has purloined the Dog Chariot and intends to sell it for me.

Ducky.

So, I’ll be thrown back on Uber drivers, or on surreptiously renting a car from the lot up the road. This, as you might imagine, will not be a good thing…seven ways from Sunday!

Argha.

Well, I can walk to a Sprouts and two large supermarkets — though I intend to investigate their skills at delivery.

Problem is, Americans by and large tend not to know how to select fresh produce. And fresh produce makes up the major portion of my diet. So…if I can’t get to a store to pick out my own food, I’m gonna have a major headache. But there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.

Right now I can’t walk much of anywhere. I seem to have sprained a hip. This morning’s stroll around the park about crippled me!

Seriously: I don’t even know if I can make it into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee.

…Let’s try it…

Ooooohhh f’rcryin’ out loud!

It STOPPED! The pain suddenly, completely QUIT.

Why? No clue.

But it’s gone. 

Too weird.

Is this whole day gonna be bizarre???