Coffee heat rising

Urban life

Okay, I give up….

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Tooling along halfway through today’s FaM post, when WordPress CRASHED the post. Can’t find it. Can’t reconstruct it.

AAAAARRRGHHHH!

Like we don’t have enough frustration in our ordinary boring lives?

So: toss it all, forget it all, start over from scratch and f*ck it all. Especially the latter. Grrrrrrrrr!

My son having purloined my vehicle, I need to walk through the 100-degree heat to the nearest grocery store to get food and treats for the Queen of the Corgis. Either that or pay an Uber driver to tote me over to the store.

LOL! Speaking of frustration…

It looks like he has also purloined whatever wine or beer remained in the house…though truth to tell, I think the stock has been low or empty for several days. The main issue is dog food. But…we have half-a-dozen cans hiding on the shelf, and about a third of a bag of kibble. So it looks like I can wait until tomorrow morning and hike down to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts to get that stuff, rather than hiring Uber to drive me right this g.d. minute.

As for the beer…meh! That can wait until tomorrow, too. Or until someday.

LOL!

Y’know, this situation gets eye-openinger and eye-openinger. What it reveals, incredibly, that if it were not for the heat, I would not need to own a car at all. 

No kidding! Not to say Can you imagine?

This house is within a few minutes’ walk of two major supermarkets (Albertson’s, Fry’s), a gourmet hippy-dippy store (Sprouts), a community clinic (in the Albertson’s shopping center!), a car rental lot, a computer repair shop, a clothing store, a veterinary, …one can go on and on. Between those and Amazon, there’s really no need to leave the neighborhood, except maybe to make a run on the doctor’s or the dentist’s office…for which you can rent a cab or an Uber. Add to that the train running up and down Main Drag West and the busses on Main Drag West, Main Drag East, Main Drag North, and Main Drag South…and…well…

Seriously: why own a car at all??? 

Think of the sheer volume of cash you could save by using the public transit and the local taxi services…only when you need them? Between the taxes and the upkeep and the fuel, a car really is a hole in the ground into which to pour money. If you organized your local travel needs logically enough, you really would not need to own a vehicle.

And dayum! If the roads here were safe for the purpose, a good bicycle would almost eliminate the need for any gasoline-powered chariot.

Well, of course: they’re not safe for that (or any) purpose. But that notwithstanding, the proximity of so many stores and services here cuts out the need for a good 90% of gasoline-powered transit, here in the ‘Hood.

Seriously: I’m thinking I may not buy another car. And I’m beginning to wonder WHY that hasn’t been obvious to me before now.

Interesting, isn’t it? You get so much in the habit of doing things in thus-and-such an established way, that you don’t think of the alternatives. 

 

Glub!!!!!

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You thought Arizona has “a dry heat,” right?  HAR HAR!!! Just now it feels like Ras Tanura did, when we lived there on the shore of the Persian Gulf: HOT and WET, WET, WETTER THAN WET.

Ugh. Ghastly morning!

Ruby and I: just back from circumnavigating the hood, through this very soggy doggy day. Ugh! Indeed.

M’hijito is gallivanting around the Midwest on business. No idea when he’ll be back: presumably in a couple of days. Looking forward to his return…and am curious to learn how things went for him there.

Traipsing traipsing doggy-traipsing...around the park. Past the house that’s having to be completely rebuilt after the previous owners trashed it. Through the ‘Hood: a pretty place to live.

Every time I walk around this place, I thank my lucky stars that I stumbled upon a Realtor named John Shackleford. He’s the one who brought me to this place, when I was looking for a house of my own after having escaped marriage. It really is a nice area; North Central but not North Central: therefore not North Central prices. That’s how I was able to afford to move here.

My first house here, which I shared with SDXB, was less than a block from the dratted light-rail line. That thing made a lot of noise and, not surprisingly, imported a less than desirable population. SDXB eventually moved out, but bought a house in the neighborhood — actually, just a block from my present palace.

Eventually, I decided to move out of the place we’d occupied — after our idiot city fathers installed that light-rail up Conduit of Blight Blvd, the noise and the human trash from the thing made for an unpleasant place to live. I’d planned to move out of the neighborhood — probably to Scottsdale, East Phoenix, or back to the Encanto district. But this place — a block from where SDXB had moved, came up…far enough from the horrid light-rail to be reasonably quiet, just a block from Lover-Boy, and handsomely renovated by the sellers.

SDXB subsequently moved to Sun City, where — being a stodgy sort — he’s very happy. I’d lived there with my parents and just hated it, so refused to follow him out there.

Soooo…here I am, ensconced happily enough on the edge of unholy Sunnyslope (you don’t wanna know!) and within a few short minutes’ drive of my son’s house. It’s incredibly convenient:

  • 3 major supermarkets (one of them a Sprouts) within easy walking distance
  • a doctor’s office, in the same realm
  • a Walgreen’s: same precinct
  • a veterinarian within walking distance
  • a train running up a main drag, but far enough from the house to avoid noise
  • armies of busses running up the two main drags to the east

One thing is for sure: you don’t need a car here. And that’s good, since my son filched mine…for my own good, dontcha know.

😀  I don’t happen to agree with him that I shouldn’t be driving — that’s BS. But truth to tell, in this location I don’t have to drive! Everything I need is within easy walking distance, even including a doctor and a vet. To gild that lily, a guy across the street is driving an Uber cab.

Seriously: if Uber stays in business, it will be several years before I’m forced to move into a horrible old-folkerie. With any luck, indeed, I’ll die before that happens. And so I will live out most or even all of my last few years in my own calm, quiet and pretty little place. With my own swimming pool, my own yard, and my own funny little dog.

What more could one ask?

The Joys of Living in Phoenix

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10:52 p.m.

What a fukkin’ ZOO this place is!

Rousted by the dog: got up to let her out to do her Thing. Spotted a cop copter buzzing the neighb0rhood.

Managed to urge the dog along and then dodge back in the house. Cop is still buzzing around over Main Drag West…essentially right over my old house’s roof.

Oh…hold that statement. Here he comes over here.

Here at FaM, Main Drag West also goes by the name Conduit of Blight. That’s pretty much what it is: a thoroughfare that brings criminals, delinquents, and pursuing cops into the ‘Hood. Tiresome as hell!!

Speaking of tiresome, I yam TIRED and wish to go back to sleep. Looks like that’s not gonna happen for awhile.

What. A. Place!

Hot enough to fry your brain…if you still have one…

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WILL WordPress let me back in this time???

Hmmmmmm…..  The answer would appear to be “Yep!” But…let us hold our wind and water…we don’t KNOW that it will let me post this squib. Ohhhh well...got nothin’ else to do just now.

M’hijito, my honored son, just called on the horn. He’s on his way out of town and all worried that I’m not competent to buy a bag of groceries. Or, more to the point, that I’ll try to walk to the grocery store (a distance of about three blocks) in the broiling heat.

{chortle!}  What CAN one say?

* Yes, I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.
* I’ll call Uber and ask them to drive me the three blocks to the store.
* Don’t worry: if the dawg and I run out of food before you get back, we’ll just do without until you get here.
* Pass me the goddam bottle of wine.

See, the problem I have these days is that people don’t seem to recognize when I’m kidding. And I don’t understand why. ‘Cause I’ve always been something of a kidder. Why isn’t it obvious anymore?

Well, to be honest (and no, NOT kidding this time), it’s 105 degrees out there. And no, I wouldn’t be happy about my 80-ish mother wandering around, alone, in 105-degree heat.

And that’s what we’ve got right now, in the balmy shade of the back patio: 105 degrees. Hevvin only knows what it is in the full sun. 

But…y’know…I’m stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid.

Of course I’m not about to junket up Conduit of Blight Blvd and across the parking lot at Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North through 105-degree heat. Soooo…WHY does he think I might actually be that stupid?

***

Okay….let us imagine some part of the agèd brain is still functional. How ARE we gonna get the chow we need?

Here in the ‘Hood, we have several possibilities for the agèd and the witless:

* Uber. This neighborhood is overrun with Uber cabs. If I wanted someone to drive me to a grocery store RIGHT NOW, I could call Uber.

* A train. It rides on tracks that run north and south past the Funny Farm, less than three blocks to the west.

* Busses. They run on the same thoroughfare; just not as often.

* Feet. The shopping center is only three blocks up to the north! Even in the blasting heat, a person in normal health (as I happen to be) is not going to expire from walking that far.

By the same token, neither am I about to pay a bus or a train to carry me three blocks to a store. Gimme a break!

* Time and the River Flowing… As a practical matter, in about six hours the sun will have gone down, the air will be much cooler, and walking up to that shopping center will be a simple and safe matter.

Yeah…WAIT until the sun goes down, forgodsake! Or start before the sun gets high enough to fry the landscape! How hard is that?

Oh well. Truth to tell, I wouldn’t have been real happy about my mother gallivanting in 105-degree heat. So I can’t bellyache too much!

Further truth to tell, though, the issue is not the ambient temperature. It’s the ambient humidity.

Ugh!!! As we scribble, it’s overcast out there (got that?: 105 degrees and cloudy!). And yeah, that does make for some real unpleasant heat — even dangerous heat.

So…yeah. Afraid it’s not a good afternoon to trot on over to the Albertson’s.

Rasty-Nasty Weather!

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That’s what my father called Ras Tanura, the company town where we spent ten years on the shore of the Persian Gulf: Rasty Nasty.

Today’s wet, soggy Arizona summer morning reminds one of Rasty Nasty. Hot and miserable: 93 degrees at 8:00 a.m.. No sign of rain that might leach some of the water out of the air. Just…yes: hot and miserable.

Seriously: today is one of the nastiest days I can remember since moving here. Maybe THE nastiest day.

Only 15% humidity, according to Wunderground. Heh! I sure wouldn’t put any money on that!

Ruby the Corgi and her human made it all the way around the park, but only by dint of the dog dragging the two-legged critter along. Drag draggity drag…about half the way!

Still… A few kids were tossing balls around. Several other dogs succeeded in hauling their humans along. But ohhhh my! Hot? Wet? Those words barely describe it.

We walked by the house where once lived the family whose son was sent to jail for allegedly “raping” a willing under-aged brat. That seems to be a “thing” in Arizona: accusing teenaged guys of raping some critter they met in a bar who turns out to have a driver’s license as fake as his, saying she was 18 or older.

A friend of mine went through that: her son picked up a chippie who had a fake ID. Naïvely went to her home to cavort in the sack. When her mother got home and caught them in flagrante, the woman called the cops and had him arrested for statutory rape. He went to prison, and his life was pretty much trashed.

He’s out of jail now. But as you can imagine, his prospects are somewhat…limited.

We do have a lot of crime in our society. But we seem to have about as much injustice…

At least my friend was able to hang onto her home. These people on our doggy-walk route lost the house, which is now an utter wreck. Presumably, if anyone ever buys the property to offer up as a residence, it will have to be bull-dozed and completely rebuilt.

It backs right onto the park, though. So — also presumably — a new or massively renovated house there will be worth a ton of money. Problem is, renovating it to that degree will jack up the sale price through the stratosphere, making it difficult or impossible to sell the place.

***

Lordie, it’s hot today! Not yet 9:00 a.m., but already too hot for viable life. Consequently: the Dawg and the Human are going back to bed!

Bye!

 

What WAS the matter with us???

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Ever have one of those reflective, memory-filled moments when you wonder…”Why didn’t I do this?” or “Why didn’t we do that?” Yeah…don’t we all, eh? This afternoon I’m haunted by one of…well, the most haunting such moments.

In the first chapter of our marriage, DXH and I lived in Phoenix’s downtown Encanto district, a quaint historic tract filled with beautiful old houses and, yes, lots of history.

Heh. It was filled with burglars and rapists, too: drawn by the affluent young people who thought a historic district was cool, and by their pretty wives (yes, in those days most young married women counted their occupation as “housewife”) who were were a sexy draw.

We lived next door to Mrs. Wilson: the widow of the city’s first city manager, a woman with some historic significance and a long, long-time resident of the central city.

Mrs. Wilson was scared.

But then, so were most of us. The Encanto district was richly populated with drug addicts, panhandlers, vagrants, burglars, and thieves. One never knew when any such worthy would come a-visiting. This fact alone was the main reason many of us lived with massive pet dogs: German shepherds, doberman pinschers, great Danes, and whatnot.

Well.

One morning Mrs. Wilson told me that she had gotten up in the night, walked out of her bedroom through the living room and into the kitchen…and on the way spotted some guy sleeping on her patio, right outside the living-room’s French doors.  

Holeeee sheee-ut!

What did she do?

Did she grab her pistol?

Nope.

Did she call the police?

Nope!

She retreated to her bedroom and cowered until sunrise.

No kidding.

What is the matter with people? All she had to do was lift the phone and dial our number. My husband would have gone right over and scared the midnight camper away. Or called the cops and sicced them on the guy.

Folks! This is why we have a  pistol. It’s why we have a German shepherd or a doberman. It’s why we have a FREAKIN’ PHONE!!!

Apparently it never entered her mind to pick up the phone in her hallway and call the police. Or us. Too terrorized, no doubt, to think.

No one would expect an 80-year-old woman to have a .45 at the ready. Okay, that makes sense. But she sure as Hell can have a telephone at the ready.

So can any of the rest of us.  

Whenever you’re home, ALWAYS HAVE A PHONE WITHIN EASY REACH. And know how to call emergency services. Most municipalities use 911; if yours doesn’t, you can dial the Operator and tell her what’s up, and where. She’ll call the cops for you.

This is easier now, with cell phones that don’t have to be plugged in. But it might be wise to have a land-line at hand, too…just in case.

The other thing we all need to do is think through what we’re going to do in this set of circumstances or that set of circumstances. 

What are you gonna do if you wake up and find someone creeping around your house? What are you gonna do if the house catches fire? What are you gonna do if you hear someone start up your car and drive it out of your carport?

And be prepared to make these maneuvers work. If you figure you’re going to grab a pistol, be sure that pistol is well lubricated, working, and loaded; and that you know how to use it. And that it’s kept out of the kiddies’ reach…  If you’re going to flee, have several escape routes in mind, and know how to get to them. If you imagine your dog is going to protect you, have your dog trained for the purpose.

Be set to go into action. Always.