The heavy-duty steel screen door is closed and locked…interior door open to let in some fresh air and let Ruby peer out.

WHAT a goddam place we live in, where you dare not leave the kitchen door open while you putter around the house! Ruby the Corgi, of course, would make a ruckus if someone tried to enter…but by then it would be too late for the human.

Some bastards nabbed a woman out of her home near Tucson the other day. She’s been gone the better part of a month. No knows what happened to her…though presumably the puddle of blood outside her door is not a good sign.

I really should keep a pistol at hand. But…ugh! That is just NOT my style. I don’t want a gun laying around, thankyouverymuch! No, not even in a house where no kids hang out.

Really, though…I suppose it isn’t safe to be loafing in your family room totally unarmed. Bad idea.

Well, it’s something to think about. Something tiresome to think about….

Because we live in a hectic part of the city, one thing we don’t have to fret about here is rattlesnakes. In some precincts, that is an issue.

Oh well… In other sylvan precincts: it’s off to the physical therapists tonight. Ugh! Another feature of life in the big city that I could do without.

Oh, well. This evening the hip HURTS with a vengeance. So that means I’ll be able to point the therapist right to the vicinity where it hurts. Then with that detail in mind, maybe they’ll be able to show me how to beat it back.

Very, very tired of hurting….

***

YIPE!  Cop copter just roared over. Goodie… 

Mercifully, he roared on up the way…by now is several miles distant. That, presumably, means the perp is not outside the back door.

Ruby the Corgi is in full loaf mode, which presumably signals that she doesn’t hear or sense anyone around. A dog, unfortunately, is not a 100% burglar alarm. But she’s better than the human, anyway. About 2/3 to 3/4 of the time, she’ll alert me if anything is up.

***

Ah! Here’s my Hero on the phone: calling to say he’s on his way over here to pick me up and tote me to the physical therapists.

Isn’t that nice! Really, there’s no way I could get there other than in a cab, if he weren’t hauling me around. <3

I do hurt too much to drive a car just now.

Uh oh… Here he is!!

So: the big desktop computer lets me in to Funny about Money! The laptop: not so much. Why? I have NO idea. Not much to say: this is more of a test post than anything else, just to see if the site will go online at all.

And so, a-w-a-a-y!

Saturday noon…and now I’ve got the plumber on his way over here.

The toilet in the master bathroom is totally clogged. The one in the center bathroom, which drains through the same system, is barely working.

Jayzuz! Another pile of obscene bills, galloping down the pike!!!

Just talked to their dispatcher: she says they’re on the way.

Goodie. I had nothin’ else today than fart with that. As it were….

My son is gonna yell at me, as he always does every time I call workmen. That will add a little more fun to the day.

Ahhhhh homeownership!

Y’know…I had the strangest nightmare last night. 

It concerned my long-gone relatives in Berkeley, California. They had a pretty little bungalow in the foothills, just the sweetest house you ever saw.

When my great grand-mother passed away, her daughter (who lived in that bungalow with her and had a high-test job with Crocker-Anglo National Bank) sold the house and moved to a nice apartment downtown. The Realtor who put the house on the market explored around and discovered that its basement was full of termites!

Apparently it had been, for some time

So after they killed off the livestock, they had to get carpenters in there to rebuild the beams and stuff in the basement and attic. WHAT a mess!!!!

So…last night’s motion-picture show brought that misadventure to Arizona. Lo! in that dream a workman climbed into the attic and found it swarming with termites.

This, you understand, is not an unlikely scenario here in Lovely Uptown Phoenix. We do have termites, too, and they have been known to excavate people’s houses. And in fact, this house has had its own visitations.

The place has been sprayed several times, attic included. Far as I can tell, termite spray doesn’t last long. Apparently you have to spray a couple times a year. And since I’m royally allergic to that stuff, I tend…well, NOT to do that.

So…boyoboy! Here we go again!

Bug guy will have to spend half the day or more climbing around spraying the attic, the roof, and everyplace else he can reach…thereby rendering the yard toxic for the dog.

And toxic for me: I’ll be sick for three or four days.

Once again I’ll have to sign on for regular bug spray, so the dog and I can get sick for several days every six months. Wheeee!

It’s the “sick” part that causes me to “forget” to call our guy or to sign onto a regular contract. I don’t happen to like to get sick from breathing the fukkin’ air. Nor am I fond of cleaning up the dog barf that happens when Ruby is exposed to the stuff. Or having to take her out for doggy-walks several times a day for a week or two, until the poisoned air clears out enough that she can navigate the yard safely.

Anyway: the crisis of the moment concerns running water, not poisoned air. We shall see what happens next….

I want my mother back.

She was murdered by the tobacco merchants of death. It was an effective way to kill her: get her hooked on an addictive, toxic weed and let her puff herself to death.

She never saw her grandson. But oh, my! How she would have loved him. How she would thought he was cool! Because he is cool.

They killed her before he could be born. She knew I was pregnant with him. But by then she was so sick from the murderous tobacco products she so loved that she simply did not care that she was about to have a grandson. And she was right: she didn’t live to enjoy him.

What the hell is wrong with our society that we allow murderous products to be manufactured and sold on the open market?

Money:

More important than life.
More important than health.
More important than our children.
More important than our families.
More important than common decency.
More important than anything, eh?

WHAT a gorgeous afternoon! Cool but not too cool, warm but not too warm. Cute little kids behind us playing in their yard. Birds gliding around…DANG! But this part of the neighborhood is THE business.

Days have gone by without a car, and y’know what has happened?

That’s right:

nothing

Not one single catastrophe has occurred in the absence of the Dog Chariot.

It appears that my son is right: I really don’t NEED a car. 

Over the past week, I’ve had no problem getting to the various places I need to go, either on foot or by Uber cab. Mostly on foot: a good 90% of the places I go and things I need are within easy walking distance.

A-N-N-N-D…. A guy who drives an Uber cab lives right across the street! About 90% of the time he’s just sitting there…so if I do need a serious ride, all I have to do is walk across the street and lean on his doorbell.

😀

Seriously: I would never have thought it was so easy to get around this part of town without a vehicle.

Knowing it sooner than this could’ve saved me a lot of money, eh?

So…now I suppose we need to decide what we should do with the car, which presently resides at my son’s place. Hmmmm. What are the options, anyway?

* Give the damn thing, lock stock and over-priced barrel, to my son. Lucky him, eh?

He, of course, has his own hole in the ground into which to pour money, so the truth is, he has no need for another one.

* Sell it and run off with a wad of money.

Hmmm…and what IS the tax implication of that maneuver? Have to check into that.

* Speaking of tax implications, donate it to a worthy cause.

Would that not convert it from a tax liability into a tax deduction? Hmmm, again: let us check with our beloved Tax Lady to find out what that really means.

Well. My own thought, to the extent that I still think these days, is to give it to the Kid and let him decide what he wants to do with it. On the other hand: that seems a little self-defeating, if I could take a several-thousand-dollar tax deduction by donating it. On the other other hand, WGAS? if the car is something he needs and can really use, what do I care whether I can extract a deduction from it?

Well. I guess we’d better confer with our tax accountant before making a decision. But…hmmmm….I’d just as soon fork it over to my son as to a charity or to the government. But…let us see what we shall see. 

Cackle! We’ve got another excuse to cheat the corgi out of her morning doggy-walk: weather!

Seriously: it’s cold as the dickens out there, with cumulus clouds stacking up all around us.

Now, if I were a responsible grown-up, by now I would have gotten up off my duff and walked the hound around the hood. But…but…that would be a sane thing to do, eh?

We don’t do that kinda stuff!  😀

Seriously, though: the hip has been spavined for several days now. Can’t say it hurts like the dickens, but it does hurt. This provides a handy excuse to claim that I’d better loaf…uhmmm…rest for the day, in hopes that letting the joint and muscle be will speed recovery.

And it probably will. If I actually did injure the joint, it happened in my sleep. I would remember if I fell or tripped dramatically enough to elicit this kind of pain. So the only explanation is that I must have twisted around in my sleep and sprained something inside there.

***

Oh, my! Mountains of spectacular cumulus clouds are piling up to the north of us. And they are beyond gorgeous! What a thing to watch out your bedroom window.

Let’s see what the beloved Wunderground has to say about that: 

Today
Thu 01/08 High 60 °F

84% Precip. / 0.68 in
Mostly cloudy early followed by heavy thunderstorms this afternoon. High around 60F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.

****

Okay… I’ll buy that! Looks suspiciously like “this afternoon” means “about two minutes after noon.” 😀 The sky is filling up with wonderful, roiling gray clouds. Wind is picking up, then dropping off, then picking up again.

Ruby is now in her Official Loafing Position at the foot of the bed. The Human is in its Official Loafing Position atop a heating pad, which we hope will soon de-spavin the hip.

Jayzuz! Whatever ya do, kid, don’t get old! Old hurts: every which way from Sunday.

Moment of panic: thought M’hijito had engineered a doctor’s appointment today. Ohhhhh gawd: just what i need to make my day….

But no: nothing’s on the calendar. So…I’m gonna hope it’s safe to assume that’s because nothing has been arranged, and I get my afternoon to myself.

And ohhhh, those flying cumulus clouds are gorgeous!

Two excellent reasons to value 

TODAY.