Coffee heat rising

Urban life

Back from the Hubs of Hades…

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Holeeee sheee-ut! Is it ever HOT out there!  Hotter than the hubs, and damp as the inside of a shower stall.

Seriously: it’s nowhere near as hideously hot ad humid as an Arabian morning used to be. But it’s close.

There, you’d get out of bed and peer out the window to see water dripping off the eaves as though it had rained during the night.

No, it had not: the sky was clear blue and no clouds floated in the sky. It was just SOOOO HUMID that the dew would settle on the roof, flow toward the eaves, and drip off onto the ground.

Miserable place.

Just now, lovely uptown Phoenix ain’t much better. It’s soooo hot and soooo wet out there, it does remind you of grody Ras Tanura. But I must say: water is not actually dripping off the rooftops, they way it used to on the coast of the Persian Gulf.

Even this much humidity is out of the ordinary for lovely uptown Phoenix. It does get damp in late July and August, but not wet enough to make you feel downright soggy. Certainly not wet enough for the dewfall to drizzle off the houses’ eaves.

Anyhoo, we circumnavigated the ‘Hood in a kind of shortened route — east toward the rising sun, north toward my old friend Jerry Jacka‘s house (he’s now long gone), back south toward a beloved old neighbor’s place — she, also long gone.

I fear I will soon be next to be “long gone.” My son would like to lock me up in an old-folkerie called the Beatitudes: a horrible prison for the useless elderly. My plan is to take a flying leap off the North Rim before that can happen…but frankly, I’m not in any hurry to go.

I deeply loathe institutional living. Hated hated hated living in the university’s dorms and do NOT want to spend the last months or (hevvin forfend!) years of my life in some gawdawful old-folkerie. Presumably I’ll have to calculate a way to achieve a final exit…but just now, that is not anything I want to contemplate.

Man! That sky out there is clabbering up! Let’s see what Wunderground calculates that we have in store for today…

Hmmm… 96 degrees as we scribble: at 7:18 in the morning. Predicted high: a chilly 105. “Air quality alert” (what else is new?). Ten percent chance of rain.

In other words: “hot and humid.”

Hungry. Might’s well get up and see what’s in the fridge to eat…

hmmmm… Leftover baked potato, swathed in cheese. Ohhh lookee here! A whole new package of loverly bacon! A package of sweet bright red little tomatoes. And berries, berries, and more berries.

Things are lookin’ up!

Guess I should “look up” and fix a pot of coffee. That would require movin’ around though. Am I capable of that just now?

Dubious.

The Evolution of Life in (un)Lovely Arizona…

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Ugh!!!  7:50 ayem. We’re  back from the Dawg Walk. Ruby is perky. The Human is wilted.

I…   Hate… Arizona! Just now it’s a chilly 94 in the shade of the back porch. Still cool out there: we’re supposed to reach 116 today. Present humidity: 19%.

Think of that. almost 1/5 of what you breathe in just now is…water! 

“It’s a dry heat.” If you think that’s dry, you must love steam irons….

Heh! Comparatively speaking, though, it is a sort of “dry heat.” I can remember in Arabia — oh, you wanna talk about Hell-holes!! — when rain would fall out of a clear blue sky.

Things could be worse, though. Be glad you’re not a Yard Dude. As we scribble, one poor wretch is trimming the shrubbery at the house across the street. Jayzus! What a way to make a living!

Daydreaming of the Bay Area, whilst stumbling around the park with the dog. Ohhhh how I do miss Berkeley, and my relatives’ beautiful little bungalow halfway up the hill to the train tunnel. Such a beautiful place. And never, ever 110 in the shade.

LOL! If I had any way to make a living there, I’d shoot up to the Bay Area in a trice. But realistically speaking: not a chance! Couldn’t even begin to afford to live anywhere near San Francisco today.

Heh! My father once remarked (angrily!) that my mother’s entire salary from her full-time job at Parkmerced would not have paid the rent on our apartment.

Well. That was a function of women’s work, not of the company in question.

whatEVER…  Today is hot and humid: no credible sign that it’s gonna get any better.

Meanwhile, sorta in that department, just today I learned that the Albertson’s supermarket down on the corner of Conduit of Blight and Main Drag South DELIVERS GROCERIES! 

Hot Dang!!!

That is amazingly good news. On two fronts:

* Transportation Front: My honored son has kiped my car! Don’t ask…these li’l family quarrels exceed the category of “too annoying to report.”

You realize: if the stores here deliver groceries, that eliminates a major reason to have to drive around in a car. And boyoboy! Freedom’s just another word…

With an Uber guy living across the street (and several similar worthies in the neighborhood), I can get reasonably priced transport to doctor’s offices, dentist’s offices, friends’ homes, and whatnot just about any time. Combine that with the grocery store delivery, and y’know what?

I DON’T NEED A CAR ANYMORE!!!!!

Seriously: There’s no reason to fill up a garage with a hulking hunk of metal and grease. For the rare occasions when I might need a car in my possession to schlep across the county, I can simply walk up to the corner of Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North and rent a car.

If that’s correct, then…seriously: I don’t need to own a car. Ever again!

* Bringing us to the Cash Front: Think of the phenomenal savings in taxes, insurance, maintenance! Holeeee maquerel!!!

Right now the Dog Chariot is stashed at my son’s house, and frankly…I’m thinking I’m gonna leave it there. He can have it. And all the bills that come with it.

Seriously… Has it ever occurred to you that a car is a hole in the ground into which to pour money?

When we lived in San Francisco, my mother and I hardly ever drove a car. We owned one — not to own a Ford would have been an affront to my father’s masculinity. But since he went to sea on tankers, he was hardly ever home to drive it. My mother stashed the thing in one of Parkmerced’s underground garages, and she and I made our way around town on foot, in buses, and by streetcar.

Now that Phoenix is finally turning into an actual city — with amenities like public transport and wahoo! Uber cabs — I hardly need a car. I could easily sell my car and, on the rare occasions when I do need one, walk up to the corner and rent a chariot for a day or three.

Imagine! No maintenance bills. No insurance covering days and weeks when the thing never leaves the garage. No siren songs luring thieves and vandals… HEY! 

Is there something we’ve been missing here, lo! these many years?

Soooo…. I’m thinking I may just leave the tank at M’hijito’s house. If he wants the thing, he can have it. If he doesn’t, we’ll sell it. It’s probably worth about 10 grand. Heeee! Think of how ten thousand dollah could fancy up that garage space! 😀

Who’d’ve Thunk It?

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I’m gunna say something here that will sound totally off the wall given the L.A.-style city that I live in. Hang onto your hat!

I could probably do completely without a car of my own.

None.
No car.
No wheels.
No insurance bills.
No maintenance bills.
No gas bills.
None. Zero. Zilch.

CAN you imagine?

A week or three ago, I sure couldn’t have.

My son, who grows more paternalistic as the days pass, decided I shouldn’t be driving from pillar to post. Or even from the front yard to the garage door… 😀

So he has pilfered my car, leaving me with…oh yeah: an empty garage. 

After I got over the urge to grab him around the neck and throttle him (that took awhile…), it began to dawn on me:

Y’know what?
If you live in Phoenix, you don’t really need a car.

That assumes you have half a brain and can figure out how to use Uber and how to use the public transit system.

Here’s why:

* The ever-annoying City of Phoenix did one UN-annoying thing: it created a usable public transit system.

* Buses now show up on time and are no longer haunted by bums and lunatics.

* And the city installed, of all things, a light-rail system that passes within a block of my house and will take you to Tempe (where Arizona State University resides) to the downtown commercial district through the mid-town Yuppie precincts through uptown ritzy-titzyville and then onward to the middle-class suburbs to the north and west.

How’s about that, eh?

The present fad for running do-it-yourself taxi services complements that handsomely. A guy who lives right across the street from me(!!!) is doing exactly that. And I think a few others here in the ‘Hood are doing the same. Once I have a list of these worthies’ names and phone numbers, I may never have to ride another bus again. Or drive another car of my own!

Hmmmmm…

Just imagine never having to drop another $20 bill into a gas tank! Never having to haul the contraption to the local repair garage for its regular maintenance. Never having to fart with getting a driver’s license from the state.

LOL! I probably will keep on with the driver’s license nuisance, because a plastic card bearing your photo is a key, standard piece of identification. Can’t cash a check without one, eh?

But otherwise….about 87 gerjillion nuisances and expenses are about to go away. 

How about you? If you could get rid of your car, would you?

Report from the Department of Weird Experiences

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Good grief! If it hadn’t been so funny — so goofy — I’d be hiding under the bed right now.

Did you know there are people in this world who cannot imagine why anyone would want to buy a chilled bottle of white wine? Some of those folks reside behind the customer service desk in a certain beloved nearby liquor store.

No kidding!  Hey!  What’s wrong with this fine room-temperature swiggle of white???

This has been one of those days when your fellow citizens are SO goony, SO ignorant, SO far out in left field that you simply have no clue how to respond.

Seriously: Every which way I’ve turned, lurking there has been another wacksh!t experience, another goofball customer “service” clerk, another inexplicable weirdness…to the point where it all comes out kinda hilarious.

But y’know…you hafta love them all! Think how boring this world would be without them! 😀

This morning I hit my favorite local strip mall, right up at the corner of Conduit of Blight and 19th Avenue.

And yeah: you DO have to love Latino culture to love that mall.

Yeah, you DO have to be White Trash yourself to appreciate how cool, how fun, how slippery, how smart the merchants up there are. Yea verily, you need to be such WT that you wish your Daddy were here to blaze the trail through that place for you. Ohhhhh dayum, do you wish your Daddy were here!! And would you love to hear the (hilarious) opinions he would’ve formed, after a day among the locals.

I’d love to be able to say I’d be as entertained as Daddy would’ve been by today’s antics of the locals. But you know…when he was alive I couldn’t read his mind. Now that he’s deader than a doornail, I have no idea whe he would’ve thought.

Well. I have an idea. But I sure as hell could have not been able to guarantee he would’ve thought that.

But ohhhhh… Yeah. He would’ve been…

amused
pissed
wilied up
out of patience
and telling his daughter to get the f*** outta there.

😀

But when you’re my daddy’s daughter, watching a$$holes dig themselves into a$$hole ditches is…well…damn funny.

 

And we need this…WHY?

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Herein lies the question:

My son, the redoubtable M’hijito, got mad the other day and stole my car. Just now it resides at his house, all the keys stashed inside his shack. In 110-degree heat, it’s too far and too hot for me to walk down there and steal it back. And so…just now I have an empty garage.

Heh! To tell you the truth, a lovely empty garage.

😀  😀 😀

Seriously: It’s clean, tidy, uncluttered, and un-stinky. It extends the house’s usable square footage under roof by about 560 square feet.

No kidding!! That space is 20 feet x 28 feet…yes, that’s 560 square feet!!

Yeah:  FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY square feet whose sole purpose is to keep a tin can out of the elements and out of reach of the local thieves.

And…and…we’re doing this…WHY?????

So, here’s the question of the moment:

What if I never took the car back? What if I just left it at his house? Neglected to re-up its registration and insurance. In a word or four: LET HIM HAVE IT.

Well. The what-ifs would be as follows:

  • I would never again have to cough up the insurance to cover a rolling hole in the ground into which to  pour money.
  • Nor would I have to refill the gas tank anywhere from two to four times a month.
  • Or have it serviced every three or four months.
  • Or pay to fix whatever craps out on it next.
  • My son would get a nice Toyota van that he could choose to keep or choose to sell.

Truth to tell, I don’t travel around the Valley much any more. Most of my automotive destinations are actually within walking distance…

  • The Albertson’s supermarket
  • The Sprouts hippy-dippy organic grocery store
  • The Fry’s supermarket
  • Those that aren’t…well, they ARE within easy train or bus-ride distance. Or Ubering distance…

Except for the 110-degree heat, one does have to wonder…WHY AM I DOING THIS?

And THAT question is given some heavy-duty salience by the new presence of Uber cabs run by, of all people, the neighbors. Yeah: for a fraction of what it costs to buy, insure, and run a car, I can get someone else to schlep me to stores and doctors’ offices. When I can’t, I can walk a block and a half up the road and rent a damn car.

So…hmmmmm…..  It strikes me more and more that it’s stump-dumb stupid to keep that car. If Dear Son wants to keep it and pay the taxes on it and cover the ever-more-stupefying costs of maintenance, let him have it. 

What Next, Then?

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Okay…no sign of Pool Dude. That’s not surprising, though. We’ve arrived at a Saturday in one of the hottest months of a Phoenix year. If you were a Pool Dude, would you be busily running from backyard to backyard?

So presumably, it’ll be Monday before the mess gets cleaned up. At the soonest: that calculation depends on the assumption that he hasn’t decided to can his freelance pool-cleaning business. The mess: remains of palm fronds, with their accompanying burden of dust and dirt, dropped into the drink when Gerardo’s boys climbed up there last week to prune the accursed palm trees.

My neighbor drained her pool. It’s been empty since she moved in, several years ago. And y’know…hmmmmm….it’s a thought.

Personally, I like the pool too much to convert it to a hole in the ground in which to breed mosquitoes. If I didn’t expect Pool Dude would show up at any minute, I’d be out there in the altogether, loafing in the cool water right now. Or at least sipping coffee and listening to the birds carrying on in the brush that surrounds the thing.

And speaking of those from whom we have no word: Mijito still has the Dog Chariot and is emitting no sign of returning it.

And y’know what?

Hang onto your hat….

The longer he keeps THAT hole in the ground into which to pour money, the less likely I am to demand to get it back.

No kidding.

I had no idea how easy it would be to get by without a rolling cash-burner. And that is in the middle of an Arizona summer, when it’s hotter than Hell and a bitch to move around outside. Not only that, it’s an assessment that has occurred before I’ve even started to take advantage of the new public transit system here. Two blocks from my front door we have a kewl, shiny, sleek light-rail train, gliding past silently on shiny new train tracks.

So the question arises, like Marley’s ghost slithering through the window: Why do I want to own a car?

Several times a day, that spook materializes and moans again: Why do I want to own a car?

And y’know what? About 99% of the time, I don’t have a good answer to that question.

Truth to tell: as I sit here, only about three or four things that I need to do would be majorly facilitated with a car…and that’s in 114-degree heat. Let the weather cool off, and you can cut that list to two or three.

1. I do need to go by the pool store and get Harvey fixed.

But y’know what else? I’m gonna foist that job on Pool Dude. Let him earn his pay, by gawd. Let me loaf, as I deserve to loaf.

2. I crave another bottle of halfway decent white wine.

But y’know what further else? That object can be had at the local Albertson’s (about three blocks to the south), at the Sprouts (two blocks down the street and across Main Drag West), at our vast Mexican supermarket (two blocks to the north), and at the local liquor store (a block to the north and a block to the east). So…uhm…I should own a $35,000 rolling hole in the asphalt into which to dump money?  Really?

3. If anything happens to Ruby — she gets sick, she eats an oleander, whatEVER — she will need to be seen by a vet ASAP.

But y’know what? M’hijito has a car and always will, at least until he reaches retirement age. In a real emergency, he can schlep the dog to a vet. But why break up his work day, when an Uber driver lives right across the street? Very likely that guy or one of his colleagues could whip us over to the nearest vet in a matter of minutes… Hmmm…for a lot less than 35 grand…whaddaya bet?

See what I mean? There really may not be much of a reason to own a car here in lovely North Phoenix, other than

* ego trip; and
* convenience.

The “convenience” part is balanced away by the repeated (and increasingly expensive) trips to gas stations, by the regular visits to the Toyota place for maintenance, by the taxes on the damn thing… Hmmm….

Really, you hafta wonder: why do any Americans keep their own cars? At the very least, why do any Americans who live free of commuting keep the damn things?