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You can’t be bothered to get off your tuchus to go SPEND MONEY!

😀

Wuz gonna make a run on Target to diddle away a few bucks on this, that, and the other. But loafed.

• Was still loafing when Pool Dude From Heaven showed up.
• Ruby bursts into a Frenzy of Dawg Joy (ohhhhh how that dog LOVES the man!!)
• His Cuteness spends a good half-hour or so working on the pool (probably more: I ain’t payin’ attention to the time).
• Ruby relishes every minute of His Excellency’s presence.
• I think…yeah, he is pretty cute, uh huh.

I decide that, cost be damned, I’d ‘druther order the salt grinder thing from Amazon than trudge to Target, Best Buy, and waypoints to buy one in person.

And so it goes…

* Cleaning Lady from Heaven busted my favorite cheapo salt grinder.

Know what happened then?
Yeah: nothin’.

*I decide to pour half a mug of wine and swill it down.

Know what happened then?
Yeah: nothin’.

* Even though I am now not even faintly snockered, I am NOT gettin’ in the car at this point. Awwwww, what a shame! I won’t be able to drive from pillar to post chasing down annoying errands. 😀

Know what’s happening now?
Yeah: nothin’.

* Stumble outside and gaze down into the magnificently transparent pool.

How DOES the man do that???????
The guy is worth his weight in gold. Or at least in swimming pool chemicals.

So it goes. Is it possible for a Ph.D. and lawyer’s ex-wife to fall in love with a guy who makes his living cleaning backyard swim pools???

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Oh, my: what a lovely man! No doubt an ex-convict. But WTF?

SAVE ME, LORD!

 

Ever entertaining: I just wasted half the afternoon cruising through neighborhoods in Moon Valley and North Central Phoenix, ogling real estate. By dayum! Saw house after house after overpriced house, marveling every inch of the way. Prices here are making their way through the cosmic roof, with no indication of any slow-down.

{chortle!} I love looking at real estate. Must be in the genes: my mother became a Realtor when we lived in Southern California. She got caught up in the Salton Sea boondoggle when she went into partnership with a woman who was selling property (such as it was) in those parts. Didn’t do too well there…I think if she’d gone into home sales in Long Beach, where we lived, and if she’d hooked up with a decent Realtor as a partner, she might have had some success. She had an ingratiating personality and people tended to like her — making her a natural for sales.

But…it takes more than personality and dutiful work to succeed in real estate.

Salton Sea was a stagnant puddle outside of Palm Springs, one of the Great Boondoggles of the American West. My father was off at sea when she became involved with the Realtor who enticed her into that scam — he was in the Merchant Marine. When he got home and discovered the nonsense she’d gotten up to, he…well, let us say he was NOT a happy camper!  By then she was fully entangled, though, and there was little or nothing he could do to get her out of it.

Eventually the Salton Sea scam collapsed, ô hallelujah, and that did get her out of it. I was still in high school at the time, and therefore did not have my nose in the parental financial affairs…soooo…have no idea how much she lost in that venture, if anything. She certainly didn’t make anything, though. WhatEVER: you may be sure my father was less than perfectly happy with that interlude.

She desisted from her real estate…uhm…career…after that. Took to selling cosmetics door-to-door. 😀 One gold mine after another, eh?

Briefly, I daydreamed of taking a job in real estate — not sales, but PR and journalism. Even went so far as to take the semester-long community college course that was supposed to get you through the state’s real-estate licensing exam. By the time I’d finished the course, though, I’d lost interest in that endeavor…never did sign up for the exam. Probably…more time NOT wasted. 😀

 

 

 

Criminey! Another stupid evening! 

Lost Ruby’s dog collar whilst circumnavigating the park, a journey that takes about an hour. Ugh!!

Her nylon collar has her name and phone number, so if  by some (highly unlikely!!) miracle, she’s found by someone who cares, they may call me and let me retrieve her. Most people in these parts won’t: they’ll just steal the dog. But at least this gives you an outside chance of getting your pooch back.

So I get home and fart around and fart around..and…eventually…what should come up but the “lost” collar. Dork with it. Kinda get if fixed. But realize tomorrow we’ve gotta go up to the PetSmart and buy some new ID stuff.

Goodie. I can hardly wait.

We hike and we hike through the darkening dusk, dodging vehicles and other people’s dogs. Finally get home.

No, I can NOT find another collar (there should be two or three around here!!!) with her name and phone number. So yes, tomorrow we have to dork with an expensive trip to the pet store. Yay!

Nine a.m. and…at last! The jets at Luke Air Force Base have come to light.

They practice every morning along about dawn, when they begin around three hours of maneuvers. So just when the Sun Citizens down the road from the base want to sit on their back porches to take their morning coffee, they get a symphony of roar, roar, ROAAAAARRRRR from fighter jets charging back and forth, as the pilots practice their moves for World War III.

SDXB, who retired to Sun City from a career in journalism and public relations, still works off and on for the base. Practically every day, says he, they get calls from Sun Citizens belly-aching about the racket from that air base.

LOL!  Well, folks: wake up! If you don’t want to hear jet engine noise, don’t buy a house five or ten miles up the street from a jet runway.
😀

My mother used to sit on her back porch and sip her morning coffee to the serenade of Luke’s blasting jets. Weirdly — well, probably not: probably as a result of living 10 years overseas in a country where Americans are roundly hated — she convinced herself that she actually liked the sound of those roaring engines. It’s the sound of freedom, she used to simper.

Ohhhhh gawd!

And ohhhhh well: whatever makes you happy.

Yea verily, though…those of us who spent a decade of our lives in a medieval dictatorship do understand what that “sound of freedom” is worth.

Nevertheless: I’m sure glad I no longer live practically beneath the base’s landing and take-off paths!

No kidding. We’re a good 20 miles away here, and the racket is…not quite awful, but still annoying.

*****

Argha! It’s after 10 a.m. and the jets are still roaring away out there. WTF?

That ain’t normal.

Something must be going on. Either its some kind of special exercise, or some sort of sh!t is coming down.

***

All of which — the memory of my mother and how much she loved their little house in Sun City, how much she loved my father — brings back all sorts of depressing and unwelcome other memories.

* The Dragon Lady and what a horrid witch she was
* How she lured my father into marrying her
* How miserable he was, living with her
* How afraid he was to divorce her (“She’ll get all my money!!!”)

Jayzuz, Daddy! Some things are more important than money!  Why didn’t I have enough sense to say that to him?

or maybe…

Jayzuz, Daddy! Your daughter’s husband is a partner in one of the most powerful law firms in the Southwest. She’s NOT gunna get all your money. Very probably, she’s not gunna get any of it.

***

Ah well. Nothing like a wee splash of wine to chase away fading regrets. {slurp!}

Seriously: now we’re comin’ on to midday, which is when I dive into my Big Meal of the Day. And I see we have enough chow in the house to concoct a nice little feast and enough to feed Ruby for the next several days.

You realize what this means, right?

Incredibly…

I won’t have to go out and buy food today!!!!!!!

Yahooooooo!

The Hound and I will be set until the first part of next week. CAN you believe it?

So: I can continue to loaf and play with my li’l computer. Ruby can continue to loaf in her favorite throne under the back bathroom’s toilet.

Loafing: The highest and best use of life!

So Ruby and I are just back from the morning traipse around the’ Hood. Actually. we’re running a little late: it’s 8:30 already.

But the lovely serenade from Luke Air Force Base, twenty miles to the west of us, is still echoing through the atmosphere. WHAT a gawdawful racket!!

My mother used to love to sit on the back porch of their little Sun City house — practically under the flight path of those damn planes — to have coffee and read the paper. She claimed, if you can imagine, to love the roar of jet planes taking off and landing for the morning maneuevers at Luke.

“It’s the sound of fweedom,” she would coo, proudly patriotic.

Nooo, muther. It’s the sound of World War III, comin’ our way.

Never happier than movin’ out of merry Sun City….

She absolutely LOVED living there, though. As Whitey-White as you can get, tomb-quiet, politically situated in John Birch territory.

Soon as I graduated from college, I got a job in downtown Phoenix and rented an apartment in the central part of the city. It was on Thomas Road, one of the mainest of the city’s main drags. Traffic noise was bracing…but it was nothing like the roar of those planes coming out of Luke.

They still roar in and out of the base. We’re a good 20 miles away, but every morning we can hear the serenade of jet airplanes straining every mechanical gut to get off the ground and charge back and forth.

*****

And now here we are in a bland waiting room at the Mayo Clinic. Ohhhhh goodie! Apparently they want to do some sort of neurological tests on me. This has been said to M’hijito…wouldn’t it be nice if they’d tell me about it!