After a fashion, anyhow…
Okay, WordPress is hijacking this post
….Abandoning…trying to save.
If it goes online prematurely, have no fear…I’l be back. Maybe.
****
Where were we?
This mini-episode is par for today’s course. Whatever I’ve touched today has gone ker-PLOOIE! And, truth to tell, that’s gettin’ a little old…
Today was a classic Day from Hell, Arizona style.
Yes. In Arizona, all you have to do to evoke a Day from Hell is to climb into your car and venture forth across the roads. WHAT a place! Crowded, unruly, batsh!t crazy. Just getting from here to there will leave you feeling a little crazed.
Wanted to go to a Walgreen’s or similar pharmacia to see if I could snare another electric steamer, the kind that boils HOT water and wafts the steam in your direction, rather than the kind that turns cold water into fog.
Good luck with that.
Along the way, I traipsed to the west side, there to visit the credit union. Argued with their rep. Could NOT make the guy grasp the concept that one of my checking accounts is co-owned with my son…for a REASON. (Dear Son uses it as a collection pail for money devoted to the mortgage on the downtown house, which we happen to co-own. This concept apparently is too arcane for the average Joe Schmoe. Oh well.)
Finally untangled the mess there (I hope), was able to get into the account (which doesn’t mean I could do so again, right this minute), and discovered I need to extract another few thou’ from Fidelity to pay this month’s AMEX bill.
NO idea how, but I seem to have hugely overcharged on the AMEX card. Not clear how or why, because I can’t get my hands on an AMEX statement. Tomorrow will have to get on the phone and ask them to send me another paper statement.
They, of course, don’t wanna do that. They want you to wrestle and bang around getting online and then spend God Only Knows how may hours trying to untangle the online data.
Guys….
Just.
Send.
Me.
A
Statement!
Right now, though, I’m in no mood to hassle with that.
Traffic in Phoenix is usually awful. Today it was horrific. Every which way you went… There seemed to be no way out of the knots of enraging traffic jams. So what should have taken two twenty-minute drives devolved into a good two hours of trudging through crazy-making traffic.
I hate this place.
Every time I get in my car, that thought wafts across my mind:
I hate this place.
If my son weren’t here, I would be SOOOO gone!
Where would I go, if my son weren’t lurking around demanding that I stay put? Ohhh…I can think of several places:
The Oro Valley, a suburb on the west side of Tucson. It’s getting a bit too suburbanized for my taste these days. But still: it’s quiet, relatively low on crime, and within easy driving distance of the urban amenities offered by Tucson.
Prescott, a large small town up on the Rim. It’s very pretty. Historic. Has a cultural life. Has a reasonably adequate regional hospital. Lots of hiking. Relatively cool weather. And its very own Costco. (What more could a person want?)
Santa Barbara (California), up the hill from the downtown area. This would require a fair amount of money…but wtf? You can’t take it with you.
Santa Fe, New Mexico. I suppose. Actually, you need rather more disposable cash than I have laying around to live comfortably and exotically in Santa Fe. But hey! Where have we heard it before? Ya can’t take it with you!
Some parts of Mexico. Ajijic, for example.
But the truth is, few venues can replace the one I have. Not for an old bat, anyway. This place is close to shopping. Close to decent doctors. Within striking distance of the Mayo Clinic. Diversely populated by people of all ages and several ethnicities. Provided with halfway decent K-8 schools. As centrally located as you can get without being in a mid-town high-rise. Lots of greenery. Served by one of the best high schools in the nation. Within walking distance (in certain seasons) of excellent grocery stores. And now we have our very own damned…uhm…coveted light-rail.
All of which is neither very much here nor every much there.
What is very much here: Bed-time!