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Beloved Contract Workers….

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Bein’ an old lady alone with a 25-pound dog in lovely Phoenix, well…natcherly I have a swimming pool, right? And natcherly it takes up about a third of the back yard.  And, it bein’ a swimming pool, natcherly it has to be kept clean.

In lovely Arizona, maintaining a pool involves much more than a weekly brush-down and a slug of chemicals.

Much, much more.

It really needs to be swept down every day. And it certainly needs to have its chemicals kept current…that would be acid, chlorine, and whatnot.

It’s not very hard, and as a matter of fact this ole’ lady can do the job just fine.

Problem is, a pool requires daily maintenance, not — as some would think — weekly maintenance.

And that causes the ole’ lady to become surprisingly bored with the job. 😀

Just in from the backyard, about five minutes ago. Looks good out there. Thanks to Pool Dude, the guy who comes around once a week and beats back the algae, the water is just plain pristine. No kidding: downright crystal-clear.

Everything else is crystalline, too: the equipment is in good shape, the system’s working fine…nary a glitch in sight or hearing. YAY!

This state of affairs is not because of a busy ole’ lady but because of the Beloved Pool Dude.

Lemme tellya: THAT is a guy who earns his keep. In spades! 

He comes around early in the week to clean, service the pump and filter, and apply chemicals. Today, incredibly, is Saturday and that thing is still crystal-clear. He is making it possible for this ole’ lady to stay in her house. Because at this age? NOT A CHANCE would I be able to keep that hole in the ground even half as clean as he does. To say nothing of keeping the equipment running as though it were brand-new.

The pool and the backyard are, taken together, a main reason I absolutely do not want to move into an old-folkerie like the Beatitudes.

That water out there? It doesn’t have anyone else’s germs in it but mine. Well…and a few birds’. 😀

That fencing out there? It keeps the Ruby Doo out of the drink. (Ever had to jump in the pool to rescue a dog? Innaresting experience…) And it serves nicely for the occasional bird to perch on.

That equipment out there? It runs seven days a week, nooo problem no trouble no hassle. Once a week, Pool Dude checks it and administers whatever maintenance is needed.

He’s not the only guy who comes around to keep this place running. We have Gerardo and his crew, about whom you read every couple of weeks. Those guys…ohhhhh Lordie! WHO would want their jobs? Talk about working like horses…  They not only beat back the weeds and maintain the desert landscaping in 110-degree heat, they keep the watering system working, trim the voracious trees and shrubs, and control the vines that pile up along the back and east walls. The thorny vines… The ones that keep the prowlers, peeping Toms, and cats out. There’s a reason they’re called cat’s claw vines.

Then we have the watering system guy, who (along with Gerardo) keeps that large and complicated system running. Properly.

And Wonder-Cleaning Lady, who kindly absolves me from housework. Just about all housework, short of dropping the dinner dishes in the dishwasher.

And the electrician, who is certifiably smarter than the average cat. By about 1000 percent…

And the plumber, who understands products and systems that date back to the early 1970s…

How do I love Gerardo and his colleagues? Let me count the ways…  WAIT! I can’t count that high! 

😀  <3  😀

Hot and Wet!

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Nasty weather here in (un)lovely uptown Phoenix: hot and wet!

No, it’s not raining (yet). As we scribble by the 8:30 light of a stuffy dawn, the back porch thermometer registers a balmy 90 degrees. But Wunderground predicts a high of 108 — ah, lovely! Humidity: a mere 12%.

Things could be worse, as we well know. But still…it makes Prescott look damn good. San Francisco looks even better.

Hey! I can’t complain. We do not get snow here! Very rarely even a few minutes of hail. I’ll take a 108 degree day in trade for 32 degrees…any time!

Interestingly, when it’s customarily this hot, 12 percent humidity seems downright soggy. And that’s the case today: yep, t feels downright soggy out there!

By 7:30 the he hound and I had circumnavigated the neighborhood’s spacious local park — a stroll of bout two miles, I’d estimate. Ruby will take a doggy-walk over a loafing human, no matter what the heat or humidity.

Once again, some A-hole jangled me out of bed before 7:00 this morning, trying to subject me to a telephone sales pitch. I told him where to shove it, as I always do. That doesn’t seem to affect the jerks. Need to get a whistle or an air-horn to blast the ba*tards with.

We’re told most of those jerks are prison inmates. Apparently, nuisance phone solicitation is a prison industry. And where, exactly, are our legislators who could put a stop to that shenanigan?

Why the Hell not give these guys jobs they can do when they get out of the slam? Jobs that don’t infringe on anyone else’s privacy or business? Or…I dunno…just teach them to get better at burgling, so they have a better shot at staying out of the slam…

<<swishroar!>>

Watering system comes on automatically…odd time for it to turn on: 9:00 a.m. It normally turns on around 7:00…or sooner. Hmmm.

Ruby comes racing out of the back, demanding to go out and investigate the noise. Open the back door.

She charges outside and patrols the backyard. Finds nothing. Comes back in. Ambles back to the bedroom and flops back down.

NOT in the mood — patience-wise or finance-wise — to get the irrigation dude back here to figure that out. Sooo…what now?

Just let it run, I figure. If it doesn’t go off, I can shut the system down manually and call Irrigation Dude. But…with any luck, it will run through its cycle and then shut up.

I hope.

This is the sort of thing that makes an apartment in a high-rise look good.

 

 

I’m IN!

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Geez, FaM’s website let me in!  I lost the log-in data and for awhile thought…well…that’s the end of scribbling blog posts! 

Whether I can get in again remains to be seen. Didn’t think the code I entered would work, so…I didn’t write it down.

Hoping that today will not be another Day from Hell. It’s overcast and muggy…gotta get up RIGHT NOW and take the dog for a walk, if we’re gonna get out today at all.

The hellish illness has eaten away at my nerves and at my son’s nerves to the point where we’re barely speaking. I don’t know what to do about it — never have been good with people, even under the best of circumstances. And what we have here appears to be about the worst of circumstances. Sooo…with social skills that rank among the bottom third, I’m kinda…fu*ked, frankly.

At any rate: awaaayyyyy!  Hope I can get back in…but if not: it was nice knowin’ ya!

To Move…or Not to Move

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The other day I enjoyed some time socializing with a business acquaintance/friend, Ken, and his very pleasant wife. They live in a planned housing development called McCormick Ranch, out in ritzy-titzy Scottsdale:  They have a nice little condo with a sweet patio verging on greenswards that make splendid hiking space.

Their apartment’s not very big — but for two retired folks, why would it need to be big? It  has a nice kitchen the size and style of mine. A handsome living-room that looks out onto a pleasant, walled-in patio, perfect for loafing of an afternoon. Or morning. Or evening. Two bland but highly serviceable upstairs bedrooms/bathrooms. Handy two-car garage.

Man! I looked at that shack and thought HOT DAYUM!  This is the place!! 

Seriously: the main reason it struck me as “the place”is that it’s right up the road from the Mayo. My son and I were slated to visit that garden spot the following day…and a “visit” to our doc’ at the Mayo entails driving driving driving…through horrid, cut-throat traffic characterized by lunatics who never should have been allowed near a steering wheel.

The Mayo is damn near an hour’s drive from our part of town. To get there from Ken’s place would take about ten minutes. Max.

Hmmmm…

O’course, that very characteristic is what makes it UNdesirable for my son and, ultimately, for me.

Those sweet li’l condos are halfway across the globe from Dear Ex-Husband’s place — meaning my son would have to drive until his car runs out of gas to see either one of us…regardless of which part of town he was aiming at. I sure don’t want to put him in a position like that. Nor do I want to have to schlep that far to get from my place to his.

So… I guess for the moment I’m stuck here in Crime Central.

***

{sigh}

Yeah. The Funny Farm is an easy target for the…uhm…locals. On the other hand, the pore li’l locals make pretty easy targets for me…especially when they set off the burglar alarm called Ruby the Corgi.

So really: I can’t very well use the Crime Situation as an excuse to drop everything and move to Scottsdale. If my son weren’t here, I’d sure think about it seriously. But he IS here, and that creates its own set of circumstances.

 

G-D Phone Solicitors!

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They got a late start this morning: it’s already 8:14!

One ringy-dingy two ringy-dingies three ringy-dingies…and here’s the start of the sales pitch.

The targeted victim emits a high-pitched stream of obscenities, followed by BITCH! STAY OFF MY PHONE!!!!!!!

She’s probably in jail. Phone soliciting is a prison industry, so a fair number of the crooks who jangle you up every day start out as criminals.

**DO NOT be polite to them! It’s not polite to jangle you up  in your home and pester you with nuisance calls. So you have no obligation or reason to be sweetie-sweet to them. Tell them to take a flying f**k at the moon — and do so at high volume.

Blasting a police whistle into the phone is an effective way to communicate your displeasure, too. Try it…they won’t like it.

Still Kickin’

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Okay…not to say grrrrrr….  Funny about Money is still online, despite the momentary threat to its existence.

So far no one has tried (actively, anyway) to force me to take the site down. So…I dearly hope THAT dust has settled.

Just back from a Ruby-free hike around the ‘Hood. It’s too, TOO hot to take the little dog out in the late morning sun. Matter of fact it was rather too hot for the Human, too…

Well. It really isn’t THAT hot. Only 100 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

O’course, I wasn’t in the shade…I was walkin’ around in the full blast of the sunlight. 😀  By and large, Arizonans can’t tell the difference, eh?

Visited the shopping center just to the north of us. Saw nothing of interest. Failed to go in and pester the bike shop guys. Ohhh well….

Even though that place isn’t far from here, in the heat it sure seemed further than normal. 😀

LOL! Maybe we could convince my honored coreligionist that a jaunt up to the local shopping center in 100-degree heat IS an attempted suicide, eh?

I’ve calmed down a bit from that passage of flaming bullshit. Whether the flames will flare up again remains to be seen, but at least right now I’m no longer in such a f*cking rage that I’m ready to throw everything in the campfire. 😀

My son has co-opted my bicycle. So I went up to one of the big general stores in that shopping center to see if I could find a similar bike, and if so, how much it would cost. Answer to Question No. 1: nope. Answer to question No 2: irrelevant. 

Sheee-ut!

So after I cool down and after the atmosphere cools down a bit, I’ll have to make a run on one of the big department stores — or on the nearest Sears — and see if I can find a bike to replace the purloined number.

That assumes I stay in Phoenix, though. This bullshit has stretched my patience beyond its limits! Just now I’m considering whether I should sell the house and move out of easy driving distance from North Central Phoenix.

Sun City, maybe?

Ugh! I hated living in Sun City. SDXB is out there now and has enjoyed it until recently. Just now he’s too ill to enjoy much of anything, and it remains to be seen if and when he will recover.

However…any number of other pleasant enough venues await. Far more pleasant, as a matter of fact:

* Fountain Hills
* Moon Valley
* Marginally livable districts in Tempe
* Paradise Valley
* The Encanto district
* The Alvarado district

All of these are more than good enough places to live, with all the amenities an old bat needs to survive more or less comfortably. And…none of them is Sun City. 😀

When my parents lived out there, we found that the medical care was…well…beyond abominable. There was my mother, dying of cancer — something that was OBVIOUS to anyone who saw her and anyone who knew her — and those effing greedy quacks out there were telling us it was all in her pretty little head.

No kidding. Terminal cancer: imaginary.

I guess we all imagined she died, too. And that she was cremated. And that an urn full of her ashes resides in the Sun City mausoleum.

All in our pretty little heads, right?

That episode, among other things, is a primary reason that you could not pay me to live in Sun City. Nay, not for a zillion bucks. I hate that place, and wouldn’t go near it if SDXB and NG weren’t out there now.

Horrible.