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Just shading on to 6:00 p.m. Here we are, Ruby and I, back at the house after an hour’s traipse around the park. This afternoon: a PERFECT time for that journey. Skies are working on overcast. Breeze is cool. The park is chuckablock full of young people playing and practicing sports. Too much scenic fun!!!

Ruby trots right along at this time of day. At any time of day, really. But it’s especially fun late in the afternoon, because the park is over-run with young soccer players and baseball players and football players. It’s a nice, big park, all grassy: great site for hordes of practicing young athletes.

So despite the spavined hip, I managed to get in a little exercise. Ruby has returned home looking quite pleased. Skies are filling with clouds: looks like we probably dodged the rain showers by about an hour.

Our old park, the highlight of the mid-town Encanto neighorhood, was really quite lovely, too. Graced by a golf course and a couple of spacious lakes; surrounded by one of the most upscale housing tracts in the Valley.

Our houses here are neither historic nor mansion-like. But they are handsome, well maintained, and pleasant. The neighborhood feels relatively safer than Encanto; fewer stoned transients lurking around.  Not that you don’t see the occasional bum over here…but the place isn’t overrun with them.

Just now the sky is coming on to spectacularly gray: reckon it’ll rain within the next hour or two. Hm…let us check the honored Wunderground…

hmmmm… Overcast. 74% chance of rain.

Speaking of Gnus: holeeee sh!t!

Lookit this!!

See that exploding tanker? That, right there, is the kind of ship my father sailed. He was a tanker captain and pilot.

And in the holee crap! department, we have this little astonishment. Amazing that the woman got out of there in one piece.

Man, give me 110 degrees any day, over 110 mph.

And speaking of the Gnus of the Day: The Republicans are at it again. Planning to take your Social Security away from you. Two trillion bucks? Hey…who needs it, eh?

Dayum! I cannot believe I used to be an active Republican. A Goldwater Girl, even. Never again, of that you can be sure.

Looks like it rained all night! But by light of day, maybe not so much. Skies are clear and blue, except for some distant clouds. Puddles of water lay all around: on the sidewalks, in the streets, in the park. Ruby, as usual, is beside herself with Dawg Joy to get out of the house and circumnavigate the park. The Human: not so much.

It’s nose-running cold out there. I’ve done something unknown to my right hip, which hurts like Hell — not  a circumstance that makes one feel thrilled about being dragged a mile and a half around the ‘Hood.

But presumably because of the rain, the place was not completely overrun by morons and their dogs.

Why ARE people sooooo idiotic about dogs? The fantasy that your dog is somehow like your kid is one of the stupidest things… Dammit, folks! Your dog is NOT you little “fur-baby”. It’s a highly evolved wolf, whose instinct is to clear the area of potential threats and nuisances to its pack.

Because this concept is beyond the locals’ comprehension, any time you take off during the Doggy Hour, you’re going to run into some idiot who bounds up to you cooing don’t worry! they just wanna plaaaayyyy.

Uh huh. If removing your dog’s head is your idea of “play,” sure: she just wants to plaaayyyyyy.

God, I’m sick of stupid.

Aggravating that mood disorder: somehow I spavined a hip. Every step hurts like Hell — and getting dragged along for every step doesn’t help.

grrrrrrrrr…. Actually, the hip phenomenon is getting better. It’s noticeably improved over yesterday. So…I figure I must have just pulled a muscle.

Meanwhile, the jet engine noise is ROOOOARRRRING away. But not, oddly, from the Sun City area in the West Valley. This morning the racket is echoing down from the north: the Moon Valley area.

That must please the locals no end.

One of my dearest friends bought a house up there. I almost followed suit. Luckily, though, because I volunteered to help her and her husband with the painting and repairs before they moved in, I got a real good look at how cheaply built those places are. Cheesiest construction you’ve ever seen. So…I stayed here, and have not regretted it.

Far as I can see, there really is no place in the Phoenix area that’s reasonably quiet. Not even the tomb-like Sun City/Youngtown, thanks to that air base.

Welp…better get up and fix some breakfast, before I faint dead away. Enough’s enough. I guess.

Clear, cool, and windy out there. Armies of young people swarming over the park: great fun to watch them frolicking and practicing and playing baseball. Ruby: thrilled to hike and traipse and hike and traipse. 😀

The RRROOOOAAAARRRRRR of fighter jet engines rolls in, across  a good 15 or 20 miles between here and Luke Air Force Base.

Hilariously, my mother just loved the sound of those homicidal machines — it’s the sound of freedom! she used to coo. They’d start at dawn, blast away for a couple of hours; then repeat at the end of the work day. Out in lovely Sun City, you could hardly hold a conversation over a cup of coffee, come dawn.

Unfortunately, the planes don’t fly over the city, so we don’t get to watch them zooming around. They really are something to see.

Unclear what’s going on in the Department of Weather-Watching. Skies are clear, but the wind is really blasting through. Wunderground prognosticates a 97% (!!!!!) chance of rain…tho’ there’s not a cloud in the sky.

***

In other noisy precincts: Lookee here! Tinnitus, sleep, and related shenanigans. 😀 As we scribble, I listen to a symphony of unshareable whistling. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee….

ALL.
THE.
TIME.

I’ve gotten used to it. But…used to it or not, sure wouldn’t mind if it would go away. At any rate: interesting article.

 

Wow! The skies are gray, the wind is blowing, and it’s threatening to rain like mad out there. So much for this morning’s brilliant idea: to head on down to AJ’s, order up a mighty supply of espresso, and loaf all morning in their sidewalk café.

Let’s see what Wunderground has to say about this shenanigan:

Another Cross-Country Beast Bringing Rain, Snow And Wind

HOLEE doggerel!

In lovely Alaska, a trio of skiers appear to have been buried under an avalanche. Brilliant: they flew a helicopter up to a remote mountainside and hopped out onto the snowdrifts. Oh well.

Hereabouts, Wunderground seems to think it MAY rain today, with temps in the 60s, and then absolutely positively will rain tonight, chilling into the low 50s.

Well, darn. Was gonna invite a friend to join me at the beloved AJs, unless I could persuade M’hito to play hooky, abandon his workload, and meet me at the store for lunch or midmorning munchies. Looks like we’ll be snurfling coffee in front of the computer, instead….

****

Ugh! The day is getting grayer by the moment! How DID it know I wanted to loaf the day away at AJ’s sidewalk cafe? Ruby and I are not even gonna be good for a stroll around the block.

{sigh}

Movin’ on…

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. 😀