Coffee heat rising

Urban life

Ever-So-Slightly De-crippled…

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The spavined hip I’ve been whining about seems s-l-o-o-w-l-y to be getting better. The Dawg and the Human managed to make our usual perambulation around the populated part of the ‘Hood — short version — without crippling the old lady. Still hurts, but at least the leg & hip are now functional.

With any luck, the undercarriage will be back to normal within another three to five days. And then we’ll be back to our usual cavortings. Yay!

Sure as Hell hurts right now, though. 😮

Incredibly beautiful stroll! Lush, gorgeous twilight evening. Most of the kids are inside for dinner, or so it appears. So it was quieter than usual as we strolled around.

Haven’t heard from my excellent son this evening, nor have I attempted to pester him from this end of the phone line. So I hope he’s having a quiet evening…ideally, hanging out with friends.

Meanwhile, also hoping to hit the sack early — Dawg is already conkered out at the end of the bed. Maybe a good night’s sleep will help the spavined hip…with any luck and enough ibuprofen.

sigh! <3  This is such a lovely neighborhood!  I hope I can contrive to stay here until I die. Really: it couldn’t cost any more to have a caretaker come in and babysit me here in my home than it would to lock me up in some dreary old-folkerie.

Well, we shall find out before too long, as I don’t seem to be getting any younger. The longer that exigency can be put off, the better!!

Pool Dude, Beloved Pool Dude

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HOW ON EARTH does this dawg know when it’s Pool Dude Day???  Do dogs have internal calendars?

That wonderful man comes around regularly to shovel out the leaves, the dust, and the whatnot, to update the chemicals, and to keep the pump equipment running. If it weren’t for him, by now I’d have had to do what my neighbor does: shut down the pool, drain it, and use it as a nest in which to breed mosquitos. (You can’t fully drain it: even with the drain open, a little puddle gathers at the deep end.)

Her neighbor on the other side is a lady who likes to sleep with her windows open. (Yeah, I know. But she’s from Europe and knows not about the risks posed by the local criminal set). So…European Lady naively goes to bed with the windows hanging open and apparently with no functional screens covering the empty space.

And…SURPRISE!!!!! She gets all bit up by the mosquitos breeding on the bottom of our neighbor’s pool, and this leads to a fine, roaring infection that damn near kills her. In fact, at one point the doctors told her dad she wouldn’t live through the night.

But she’s a tough lady, and so she surprised them. She’s back and going strong. And our neighbor’s mosquito pond still sits in that backyard, with a nice little puddle at the bottom.

I suggested to European Lady’s dad — who happens to be the famed Tony the Romanian Landlord — that he quietly toss some insecticide over the wall into the puddle. And…well…he must have done that, because we no longer get mosquito raids here.

What a place!

And to put the crown on that: this is one of the better “places” in Phoenix.

Wherever there are humans, there be morons. 

Wow!!

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Life in lovely downtown Phoenix…  This little adventure occurred right across the road from where I was gonna live. Yeah: just a few years ago, I almost bought an apartment just across the street from this spot.

What a place!!

Fortunately, I decided the price was too high for what the condos offered. And that the location would be too noisy. All very urban, y’know.

It was a conundrum, for sure.

I didn’t want to move to Sun City, where my parents held forth after my father retired, and where SDXB went. Old folks’ mausoleums aren’t my speed, alas.

We have our own little adventures, here in this middling in-town section of North Central Avenue. But so far nothing that dramatic! And certainly we have fewer incidents per month or per year than other centrally located districts do.

Honest t’Gawd, this place gets more and more like Southern California as the days trundle by. But really: I’m past the age where I feel any enthusiasm for packing up a house and moving into a new shack and finding new places for all the junk and unpacking box after box and stocking shelf after shelf. Ugh!

So I sit here and listen to the melody of gunshots — off in the distance, so far — and watch the kids play and…loaf. 

Outta There!

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Hmmm… Sounds like the cops must have chased off the legions of delinquents, drunks, and morons who inhabit Main Drag North at this hour of a weekend evening. The Roar ROAR ROAR that we normally enjoy at this time of night has suddenly ceased. So…presumably the gendarmes went after the roaring idiots.

It’s the kind of stupid stuff that makes Sun City look good. To the extent that a mausoleum can look good, I suppose.

{chortle!}  Actually, the racket from Main Drag North was one of the reasons SDXB took off for Sun City. He likes to sleep with his windows open..not, indeed, the ideal arrangement in a neighborhood bounded by drag-race tracks.

I, being a female type, keep my doors and windows shut and solidly locked at night.

BANG!

Charming. Another backfire…or fire-cracker…or gunshot.

At any rate…suddenly dead quiet emanates from the ‘Hood’s northern border. So presumably la policia have come awake.

Come a holiday, every moron in the city is outside shooting off their bang-bangs. That turns New Year’s, the Fourth of July, Christmas, Labor Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day…and on and on and on…into noise-making nuisances.

This is one of the reasons SDXB took out for Sun City. When you live in a mausoleum, you don’t have quite the noise problem that you get on the fringe of a slum.

That notwithstanding, I ain’t movin’ to Senility Central. Just close the damn bedroom windows!!

 

 

Brats and Morons Abroad!

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Saturday night! A lovely night, actually: cool but not cold, soft of air and clear of sky….

The racket from our local morons’ unmuffled hot-rods echoes down from Main Drag North. And what a racket! The cops have lots of other things to do than enforce the law that requires cars to be equipped with mufflers. So…that’s one that’s ignored consistently.

And so here in the ‘Hood we get roar roar ROOOAAAR into the night. All night, every night. With ROARS in spades on the weekends.

And just now we’re getting BAM…BAM…BAM BAM from an idiot neighbor playing with his gun. And probably one or two other idiots setting off fireworks.

Makes Sun City look good, I’ll tellya!

And I ain’t fond of Sun City….

It’s agin’ the law to run your car without a muffler hereabouts. BUT…this bein’ Arizona, it’s a law honored more in the ignoring than in the enforcing. So here in town, we get blasted with engine noise, way into the the night.

And one has to allow: no doubt the cops have lots better things to do than bellyache at people for making a racket.

Speeding.

Gunshots.

Rattletrap junkers.

Stoned drivers. 

Ech! What a place!!

But I suppose most places are like it, eh? Well…city places, anyway.

Wish there were a quieter place to live in these parts. NOT the mausoleum that is Sun City, that is. But really: far’s I can tell, there’s not.

Just get used to it and enjoy it, eh?

Our Garden Spot…

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Cop Copter overhead to the north, circling angrily…

BANG! BANGBANG!

Some a$$hole shooting at him, 

Herd the dog inside, follow her in. Shut off the exterior house lights.

Bathe as fast as I can scrub my li’l self. Dry off. Dart into the bed.

Cop is still circling to the northwest, though a further distance away.

And…his copter motor racket fades…he’s sailing off. Thank gawd!

One more gunshot. And now: silence.

 WHAT….

                A…..

                    PLACE…..

And NO, Sun City isn’t one whit better than lovely uptown Phoenix.

Our problem, I fear, is NOT that we’re in the slums of west Phoenix…NOT that we’re dodging bullets in south Phoenix, NOT that we’re trying to look inconspicuous north of the canal, but… Yeah: that we reside in the city of Phoenix. 

Horrible.

Went back and looked at those houses over by the canal, on the east side of ritzy Central Avenue.

Uhh….  huh uh! A dirt path runs behind that little tract of houses, right between their back wall and the canal bank. A perfect trail for every burglar, rapist, and lunatic in North Phoenix.

So…heh…we won’t be looking at that real estate.

Seriously: if Sun City weren’t an hour’s drive away from M’hijito’s house — if it weren’t bathed in the atmosphere of the mausoleum — I would have followed SDXB out there the minute he sold his house and moved westerly, ever westerly.

But I just can’t stand the place. Hated living there when I was stuck out there with my parents. And I sure don’t want to repeat that act. Ugh!

If you wanna live in peace and quiet, d-o-o-n’t retire to Phoenix!!!