Coffee heat rising

Urban life

Back at the Ranch…in the nick of time

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GAAAAAHHHH!  Go ahead: just try to sit down while the coffee steeps!

Hah. we say to that. Hardy-har-har!

Comin’ on to 8:00 of a VERY soggy morning. Thunder rolling. Clouds lurking. RRRR-O-O-A-A-R!!!! Just made it back in the house from this morning’s doggy-walk….

How can I count the ways…?

Seriously, this is one weird morning. We’re right at 8:00 a.m. and it’s so dark out there you’d guess it was around 6:00. Water all over the back porch: it must have rained during the night, ’cause it missed us while Ruby and I were traipsing around the ‘Hood.

Somebody’s burglar or fire alarm was wailing away…they must be out of town. Or all dead, presumably murdered by their alarm’s visitor. WEEE-UUU WEEE-UUU WEEE-UUU WEEE-UUU WEEE-UUU !!!! What a racket! 

Inside our house, we can’t hear that serenade, though. Just the KER-BOOOOOOOM! of the present thunderstorm.

Man! It’s really roaring away out there! Wunderground predicts a high of 86 with a 98%chance of precip. That would seem to translate to HOT AND WET. 

Uh oh. Lawn blower racket. 

Puuuleeeze, Gawd! TELL me that’s not Gerardo’s boys banging around the yard!!!!!

Nope: they’re across the street, lucky guys. Thanks, God!

How would you like to be trying to mow and blower up a 1/4-acre yard as the sky is roaring at you? Sometimes even the most crabby-making days look just fine compared to someone else’s fine day….

Garden Spot!!!

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So saith the beloved Wunderground, as we scribble: 103 degrees(!) with a 15% chance of rain…  Glub!!!

Seriously: It feels like (un)lovely Saudi Arabia out there: Hotter than Hell and as humid as the inside of an active shower stall.

We’ve got pretty clouds fluffing their way across the sky…so I’d suggest (being the expert weatherperson that I am!) a bit more than a 15% chance of rain. Whaddaya bet that by sundown tonight, we’ll have not a CHANCE of rain but REAL, PALPABLE water falling out of the sky?

😀

Fluffy clouds or no, it’s hotter than the hubs out there. Vaguely, I’d planned to stroll over to one of the neighborhood markets (what we have here, within walking distance, are an Albertson’s (same as a Safeway), a Sprouts, a Walgreen’s, and a Fry’s. Plus some smaller stores of diverse varieties.

Not in this heat, though!

If it cools off enough, the Ruby and I can assay another stroll around the park. But…I kinda doubt it. This sort of humid heat, when found in (un)lovely Arizona, doesn’t cool down real quick, even after the sun sets. The streets will remain too hot for her li’l feet until well after nightfall.

So it looks like our next Doggywalk will be put off until dawn tomorrow (and not later than that!).

She doesn’t seem to mind: she’s conkered out on the sack just now. Canine response to heat, I reckon.

Y’know…  Phoenix — the Valley of the Sun — never used to be like this. It didn’t get this humid.

Yes, it did rain. But when the air got as wet as it is now, that’s when the rain would coalesce out of the sky. 

No kidding. Back in the day, it never felt as soggy and muggy as Saudi Arabia used to feel. But now? Yeah: for some period during the summer, you’re gonna feel like you were perched on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The joys of urbanization, eh?

And this is what makes me miss the San Francisco Bay Area, where my relatives dwelt before my parents took off for distant parts. Damp? Sure. But damp and hotter than the Hubs? Nope.

Ohhhh how I wanna go home!!
😮

 

Dawgy Walk…Through the Swamp

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Blech! That is hardly an understatement. 6:30 in the morning and it feels like a freakin’ sauna out there! What a horrible day!

It’s 90 degrees in the shade of the back porch. 8:30 a.m.  Truly does feel like a freakin’ SAUNA out there, it’s sooo hot and soooo WET. 

I’ve seen days like this in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia when the air was so wet that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky. Presumably the only reason that isn’t happening now is that we’re not parked on a beach next to the freakin’ Persian Gulf. Yech!!!

But…I’ll bet if we were much closer to the Sea of Cortes, that sky would indeed be spitting rain on our heads.

DXH is in Chicago, for some sort of business meetings. I forgot….and called him as dawn cracked this morning. Thereby interrupting him and annoying him royally.

Jeez. Don’t get old, whatever ya do!!  😮

Don’t have much to do today…I don’t think this is Cleaning Lady Day. If that guess is correct, then there’s no need to race around the house picking up litter.

Hmmmm… Found a roadside doctor practicing next door to the Albertson’s shopping center. I’m thinking I should try to build a doctor-patient relationship with the guy…not because he seems so wonderful, but because he’s so convenient. The Mayo, where our docs practice, is a good hour’s drive from here. I can walk to this guy’s office. So it would be good to have him on the string for ailments that would benefit from a doctor’s attention but that clearly are not terminal….

That would help a lot.

The MayoDocs are great when you have something wrong that’s real and that’s significant. But driving to the other side of Timbuktu to have every little sniffle checked? Not so much. 

This is one of the great things about living in the thick of a major metropolitan area: you don’t HAVE to drive from pillar to post to get things done. In fact, just now I don’t have to drive anywhere: everything I need and do is within walking distance. Failing that, though, we have an Uber driver living across the street — one of half a dozen who inhabit the ‘Hood. I can hire him to schlep me around the Valley.

I’m pretty sure I can get this new doc to overrule the Mayo quacks’ opinion that oh dear oh dear I mustn’t be driving. But the truth is, I’m not sure I want to be bothered. The main thing just now is that I need the driver’s license to serve as identification. Driving per se is beside the point. Cashing a check is the point.

So I need New Quack to help me retrieve my driver’s license. If he will.

😀

Gosh, I’m tired of Stupid Stuff. 

Does it not occur to you that Stupid Stuff ebbs and flows like the tide?

For a nice long time, things flow smoothly and calmly and sanely. And then all of a sudden a freakin’ FLOOD of Stupid Stuff pours down on you like an ocean wave? Just now, we’re definitely at high-tide. I feel like I’m drowning in Stupid Stuff!

And frankly, wayyyyy too much of it is emanating from those suckers at the Mayo: the ones who listen to my son bellyaching about me but never think to ask me about the cause of the bellyaching.

That, I think, is why I need to hire on some docs who a) don’t know me; b) don’t know my son; and c) have heard nothing from the opinionated set at the Mayo Clinic. Let them hear me whine about my current “symptom,” let them examine me, and let them form their own conclusions about what, if anything, ails me.

Haunted!

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LOL!  Ya just think some damfool ailment is gone, and wooooooOOO, like Caspar the Ghost it’s b-a-a-a-c-k!!!

Here I thought the hip pain was magically healed…gone…free of limping and aching and whining!!!!!

Uh. No.

It’s back now, and with a vengeance.

What DID I do to bring it back?

Nothing, that I can think of. Just sitting here, loafing and playing with the computer. Get up to go to the bathroom and OOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

By damn, I can barely hobble across the room!

No idea what kicked it off.

* Not sitting in any goofy position
* Not hiking around the neighborhood with the dawg
* Not loafing in the bed cattywampus
* Not scrubbing the floors
* Not climbing on ladders
* NOTHING!!!!!

And now, here we are: hurting like HELL!

DAYUM! I was gonna hike across Main Drag West to haunt the computer store. But now…well…I’d be surprised if I can walk that far. And if I can…whether I can walk all the way back home.

{sigh}

If I were a grown-up, I would get into the pool and exercise the thing a bit. And that might work the pain out.

Or…heh…it might cripple up the damn hip enough to leave me stuck in the drink.

So much for that idea….

Once I get up and start to move around, it feels better. Not cured, but not crippling either. So I assume (hope) it’s nothing serious.

This morning: discovered online that the Romanian Landlord has a nursing home of some kind, established on one of the residential streets to the south of us. Interesting. I’ve heard that Romanians tend to get into the nursing home and care business…didn’t realize he was doing that. Last I heard, he’d closed down the reform school for juvenile delinquents.

That one must have caused way too much trouble for the poor guy. You just can’t imagine how much static flapped out of that enterprise! He being no fool, he recognizes which side of the bread is buttered, so within a few months he closed that one down. Right now, he’s renting the house to a very bland young couple…and frankly, I think that’s a very smart move on his part.

As long as they pay the rent, he makes a profit on the place. And so far, they’ve been quiet and inoffensive. Let’s hope they stay that way…

DOUBLE Dayum!!!  Dare to sit down (wouldn’tcha think by now I’d know better?) and here comes Gerardo’s crew, descending on both the back yard and the front yard at once. ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR…that’ll be a hundred bucks.

Think o’that. A hundred dolla for about 30 minutes of work.

Y’know, he’s jacked up his price. Now…it’s true, costs are going up everywhere. So he probably NEEDs to increase his billing. But dayum!!! A HUNDRED DOLLARS for thirty minutes of charging back and forth around the yard???????

True, they do an awesome job. But…that seems like a lot for not very much time.

On the other hand, he does have four guys roaring around out there. So in theory, it’s really two hours’ worth of a single yard dude’s labor. But gosh.

It really does make a box in the sky look good. 

{sigh} I imagine the proposed high-rise apartment on North Central Avenue would have its associated monthly costs. Probably not a lot less than a hundred bucks — trash pick-up, hall clean-up, window washing, receptionist’s time, security guard, underground garage maintenance…yeah. Probably not a lot less than Gerardo bills.

But…geez!

*********

Morning Does Not Become Us…

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Ayup! It’s another gray, soggy morning in (un)lovely Arizona.

Hot
Muggy
Stuffy
Dim
Whatever you touch goes HAYWIRE

Why is that? The Haywire Effect, I mean. Most of the time, life the universe and all that goes along peaceably enough. But nay verily! Not today!

It truly is an unpleasant morning. Hot and overcast. The air: just sticky. 

Ruby and I need some grocery-store loot. But what with His Lordship having kiped my car, I would have to walk to the nearest store, a quarter-mile or more from the Funny Farm. And weirdly enough, I do NOT want to traipse around out there in that wet, soggy heat.

Blech!!!  I may call our Uber guy a little later…see if I can persuade him to schlep me to a grocer and then sit around twiddling his thumbs while I traipse through the store. Just think how well THAT will go over.

Oh, well. Later. Some things will wait until later.

Much later.

I had planned to pester M’hijito this morning by jangling up his phone and inviting him to visit the Old-Folkerie of my father’s choice, Orangewood: now much spiffed up since his day. And, you can bet, much increased in price. They gave it a pricier-sounding name, too: The Terraces. La de da!

How can I count the ways I do not want to live in an institution?

Almost as many ways as I don’t want to live in an ordinary, noisy, boring, annoying apartment house.

Ohhhh well. The Funny Farm continues in excellent shape. It’s paid for. The neighborhood is relatively safe (except for Gangland Central, a couple miles to the north). All that’s lacking is a car (my son having extracted mine)…and given our location, the truth is that you don’t need a car here to get by just fine.

Frankly… I’m now thinking that it would cost a whole lot less and and annoy me a whole lot less to hire workers to come in and provide the services that you get from an Orangewood-style old-folks’ warehouse.

Roof over head…much nicer and much more generous than one through which the folks upstairs are blasting their TV set and tromping around.

Proximity — as in “walking distance!” to not one, not two, not three, but FOUR top-notch supermarket and gourmet grocers.

A neighborhood doctor’s office, just sitting there by the sidewalk. Dang! Goodbye to those hour-long drives to the Mayo!

These are perks of living in the middle of a large, middle-class metropolitan area. Most of what you need is within walking distance.

What help would you have to hire?

* Cleaning lady  — already have one of those
* Driver — one lives catty-corner across the street. And he’s among a half-dozen who live in the ‘Hood.
* Yard guys — have those. Have hired them for years.
* Handyman — the guy across the street will do little fix-it tasks for me. But when I tire of imposing on him, the place is swarming with people who will repair and build things.
* The usual array of plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and the like — already have them all on the string.
* Someone to supervise these folks — Heh! This is why we  have a son, right? 😀

****

Hafta say… It really never occurred to me, before this, that I really do not need a car here. This ain’t San Francisco, after all.

But…apparently while I was paying no attention, the place has taken on more and more characteristics of a large, sophisticated city.

“Sophisticated” will never fit Phoenix as an adjective. But “car-free” surely could. The roads are laid out in a standardized grid pattern, north-south streets intersecting and overlaying east-west ones. So wherever you are,  you certainly CAN get there from here. With rather little effort!

As long as you can walk (admittedly, not everyone can…and I won’t be able to, not for much longer), wherever you’re goin’ you indeed can get there on foot…with surprisingly little effort.

What will I do when I seriously can no longer walk five or six blocks?

Well….an Uber driver lives right across the street. Several more live in the neighborhood. I figure their phone numbers will be saved to my iPhone. And when I need a ride, I just press a button and roust one of those guys out!

Not only that, but the major grocers nearby — Albertson’s, Sprouts, El Rancho — have taken to delivering groceries!!! All you have to do is call up a web page, charge up a passel of products, and stand back. Shortly, they’ll appear at your door with a week’s worth of food and household loot.

Et voilà. Conveniences like these will — I think…I hope — delay having to move into an old-folkerie for several years. Yeah…

I hope.

Car? We Don’t Need No Steenking Car!

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LOL! Ever had that thought? The why am I spending 87 gerjillion bucks on this clunk thought? The what a PITA it is, schlepping this contraption in for its regular maintenance thought?

Yeah…..  Lately, I’ve been kinda haunted by that thought.

Main reason is that it has slowly but steadily dawned on me, now that we have a lightrail train cruising up and down Main Drag West and now that a rental car lot has taken up residence in a nearby shopping center and now that (duh!!!) I’ve come to realize I can reach three large grocery stores and a Walgreen’s on foot, none of them more than a ten-minute stroll away…that…yeah…maybe, just MAYBE I don’t need a car. 

Think o’ that!

Seriously: when I need a ride that’s longer than a short dash around the strip malls that surround the’Hood, I can call for an Uber. DAYum! A guy who drives for Uber lives right across the street. Several other Uberites dwell in the immediate neighborhood.

So…umh…WHY am I spending some unholy amount of cash to keep a pile of steel and aluminum sitting in my garage most of the time?

Why am I freakin’ going broke to insure that pile of tinfoil?

For the past couple weeks, the Heap has resided at my son’s house. And…y’know what has happened?

Yeah,

Nothing.

NOTHING horrible has ensued from the absence of a $15,000 pile of sheet metal, bolts, and rubber.

Well. Something HAS happened.

I’ve come to believe that in a city like Phoenix, now that it has installed piles of public transportation up and down almost all of our main drags, there really is NO NEED to own a car! 

Seriously.

From my house, I can walk to not one, not two, but THREE major chain supermarkets: an Albertson’s, an El Rancho, and a Fry’s. Not sufficient? We also have two huge chain drugstores: a Walgreen’s and the one inside the Albertson’s. All these have pharmacies. Three of them sell more groceries than you can dream of.

And with the trains running up and down Main Drag West, I can cruise as far as I please to visit stores, doctors, dentists, and whatnot. For just so much loose change!

Gosh. It’s almost like when we lived in San Francisco: a real city! 

So…I’m thinking get rid of the clunk. Maybe split the sale price with my son, giving half to him as a sales commission. And…call it a day.

We have a rental lot just a couple of blocks up Main Drag west. If I must have a car to drive around, I can go over there and extract one for a day. Same if I feel called to drive up to the Grand Canyon or some such. Why OWN a hole in the ground into which to pour money for the sake of a few rides here and a few rides there?

So…I’m kinda excited about this idea. Haven’t discussed it with M’hijito yet. He being the owner of the male voice here in the famiglia, I think he should have a say in this scheme. But frankly: I suspect he’ll approve.