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Gawd, is it ever HOT!

Actually, no…it’s not hot out here on the back porch. It’s just stuffy. The air, I think, is slightly damp, despite its cloudless state. And that makes it seem warmer than it is. And kinda uncomfortable.

Just back from a doggy-walk around the park. Traipsing, traipsing…Ruby and I are about the only ones dumb enough to be outside at this time of day: mid-afternoon. We make the circumnavigation — a mile or so — and stumble back to the Funny Farm. Ruby collapses on the bed. The Human flops in an easy chair.

Truly, I do think it’s NOT that hot. But it’s strangely humid and…well…reminiscent of soggy.

Wunderground pegs the local temp at only 80 degrees. Couldn’t have proved that by me! I’d have guessed closer to 90.

Humidity: a mere 24 percent.

Where DOES this place think it is? Saudi Arabia?

Seriously: it does feel vaguely reminiscent of the Persian Gulf, where early of a clear morning, humidity would drip off the eaves like rain. But nothing’s that wonderful.

WhatEVER…it does seem to be skeeter weather. Which is unusual, because Arizona is not a place that fosters the propagation of mosquitos, at least not most of the time.

Aim the table fan at the human and turn its switch to “lift-off” speed. That usually blows the little gals away.

My son still has my car, purloined at his house and locked in his garage. This makes it difficult to chase my fellow homicidal motorists off the road…and also to get groceries in the house. Certainly in this not very balmy weather. If I were ambitious, I’d call the Uber driver who lives across the street and put him up to driving me to a store.

But…

Well… Ambition is not my middle name. Certainly not today! So…we’ll have to scavenge something to eat. And failing that, go on a diet. 😀

Loafing is always better than dieting, eh?

Even if were not pouring rain, this is NOT something  would wanna do tonight.

Dammit!!

Dear Son called a few minutes ago to remind me that, ohhhhhh joy! We have to traipse to the physical therapists’ gym and blow away the whole evening going HUP HUP HUP…

What a freakin’ bore!  What a freakin” waste of time!

Frankly, I don’t see that hup hup hup does much for the spavined hip. Doesn’t make it worse. That’s something.

But doesn’t seem to do a whole lot to make it better,

Well. It may help a little.

But not so much that I wanna charge out into the rainy night to diddle away three hours going hup hup hup. 

Maybe I shoulda made up some sorta story to weasel my away out of tonight’s allegedly therapeutic antics. Alas, though, I didn’t think that fast. Sooooo…he’ll be along in a few minutes to drag me over to their gym.

What. A. Bore.:-D

For reasons unknown, I am sleepier than all my tribe. Won’t THAT add to the fun tonight, eh?

*********

BACK at the House!

Yaaayyy! Survived another evening of brain-banging exercises.

 

Yep: that appears to be what we have next on the agenda. My son is on his way over here to pick me up and drag me to the physical therapist’s gym, there to be pestered and exercised no end.

UGH!  How could I do without it??????

Well. Actually…I have no business bellyaching about this routine.

The spavined arm hurts like the dickens just now — and has done so all afternoon. Some supervised exercising should loosen up that shoulder and, with any luck at all, ease the pain…ohhhhhhg hellle’s belles!!!!  Here he is!

DAYUM!

Ugh!!!  Hotter than the Hubs out there this morning. And wet. Not raining, but so humid the air feels thick.

Ruby the Corgi and I are just back from trudging around the park: the exercise walk of the day. It’s so sticky out there, you feel like you’re walking through cotton candy!

M’hijito has got us set up to traipse to the far side of the galaxy, there to visit the august Mayo Clinic…again. If there’s ANY way to get out of that, I’d sure like to. The peripheral neuropathy is clearing up now. Almost gone, come to think of it. So this is going to be a long, tedious, annoying wasted trip.

On the other hand, he’s got his own ailment that would benefit from a chat with those august quacks. So maybe we could just trade conferences: HE, not me, talks with the doc.

On the other other hand, he’s the one with the demanding job. And he’s the one who shouldn’t be wasting two or three hours traipsing to the far side of the galaxy, there to talk with a doctor who will tell us nothing we didn’t already know. Either way…it’s a monumental waste of time.

Keeerimineee! Gerardo’s guys surfaced here. Roared around, banged around, raked around. Held out a hand: A HUNDRED BUCKS for one hour’s worth of clean-up.

Folks…I just paid them two weeks ago!

Now, admittedly: I couldn’t do that kind of work anymore, even if the temp outside were NOT 100 degrees just this moment, right at noon in mid-September. And I certainly couldn’t cut the guys back by 50%: after an untended month, the yard would look like a wilderness.

But…y’know what this sez to me?

Maybe…just maybe…we’re getting to the point where it’s time to consider moving into that high-rise apartment I secretly covet. Or, Gawd help me, into the horrible, terrifying old-folkery I most UNsecretly want to run away from….

ARRRGHHH

Okay, okay. Get a freakin’ GRIP on the marbles! 

Lookee here: a shared room at Orangewood STARTS at $3,400 a month.

Holeee shee-ut!!!

Detest room-mates as much as I do? Get a private room: $4,100 a month. AND, gawd help us, we’re told that’s below the typical market rate: average cost for assisted living here in lovely Phoenix runs $3,975. Presumably in a setting devoid of privacy.

Dear gawd.

Well…ahem… {choke!} {gag!} Look at it this way: I could get someone to come to my home and ride herd on me for a fraction of that.

W0nder Cleaning-Lady, who in addition to shoveling out my house also takes care of the bedridden and infirm in their homes, just charged me all of $80 to spend the whole damn day here shoveling out the house. And doing a pristine job, we might add.

Gerardo’s dudes just left: they passed two or three hours working like horses in gawdawful heat, cleaning and manicuring the yard: $100, for three incredibly hard-working guys.

Make a comparison like that, and you’ve gotta figure that you’ve got quite a ways to go before staying in your home to rot into old age will cost you more than locking yourself up in an old folks’ prison.

So…uhm…what do I NOT get for that much cheaper maintenance cost? Let’s try think sorta rationally about this, hm?

If that’s even possible:

Yard service. Gerardo’s crew leaves not one damn thing un-done when they spend half a morning roaring around the place. I just paid the boys $100 for heaving around in 100-degree heat and leaving the place looking like a freaking resort.

Cleaning. Baby-sitting. Yeah: the Cleaning Ladies from Heaven roar in here, work like horses for something over half the day, leave the place spotless, and…as part of the $80 package, they’d take me to the grocery store if I asked them.

So far, mercifully, I haven’t had to do that. Bridge to cross when the time comes, eh?

Hmmmm…. Well, think about that. A day of babysitting services, at $180, is as nothing compared to what it would cost me to move into the old folkerie. We’re talkin’ hundreds of dollars a month vs. thousands of dollars a month.

Then we have the chow issue. I happen to be damn picky about what I eat. No, I do not care to eat crap that comes out of cans and boxes. Or stuff that’s dished up off a steam table (most of which also comes out of cans and boxes). Nor do I care to dine when someone else tells me to come to the table, rather than when I feel like eating.

As long as I can stumble from the bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom, y’know…it strikes me that I would be FREAKIN’ NUTS to move into one of those holding pens for the elderly and the infirm.

Yeah: I surely am getting to the point where I feel a shade nervous about being here all day, with nothing but a dog and a magazine of slugs between me and the next chucklehead who shows up at the house.

But you know…for what it costs to live in an old-folks’ prison, I could hire someone to come around once a day (or more) to check on me. I could have a gadget to wear around my neck that could be used to summon help with a push of a button.

Matter of fact: This very afternoon let’s look into getting one of those things. For the nonce, though, a cell phone in a pocket will do the job, in most circumstances.

Yeah. Maybe…. Right now I have four DIFFERENT cell phones, none of which I understand how to work very well.

But;..uh…that’s easily solved, stupid! Go out and buy four or five inexpensive cell phones that are all the same! Learn how to work the damn things. Then keep one in a pocket, and one near the floor in every room in the house.

Hmmmm… That would entail more than four or five units, right? Let’s see:

* Family room (abode of the loafing chair)
* Kitchen
* Middle bathroom/loafing bathtub
* Back bathroom/shower
* Purse
* Bedroom
* Garage/laundry area
* West deck
*Back porch

That’s nine cheap phones.

Hmmm….  I already have five of those. So I’d only have to buy four more.

Then figure out how to use the damn things (they’re all different, right?) and set them down near the floor in each room. Thus, if I fall but can drag myself across the room, I should be able to grab a phone and dial 9-1-1.

And would need to buy only a few more cheapie cell phones to accomplish that.

Hmmmmm….  I wonder if any such lash-up would work?

Seems to me, given one’s senility, that your set of emergency phones would all have to be the same brand and model. Trying to learn and remember how to use a half-dozen different gadgets would be…counterproductive, at best. But hey! If you’re gonna go out and buy a bunch of phones, what’s to stop you from buying a bunch of clones?

Heh! Clone phones!

😀  Sorreee about that! 😀 

Problem is: nuisance telephone solicitors. As I was just about to hit “POST” for this squib, what do we get but

Ringy-dingy-dingy ringy-dingy-dingy

Some A$$-hole on the phone trying to peddle stuff to me. I give her an earful and hang up on her….but of course, that’s not going to stop all her nuisance colleagues from pestering me.

However, you can turn off a cell phone’s ringer. That no doubt wouldn’t head off ALL the nuisance-a-ferizing, but it surely would cut a lot of it. If all the phone is doing is vibrating, half the time you wouldn’t even notice it. All you would need an emergency call-out phone FOR would be to make emergency calls out, right?

Ugh!!!

I find the present technological age intensely frustrating. And nuisancey. And…well…I guess previous generations did, too, as these things evolved and spread across the culture.

Stop the world! I wanna get off!!!