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Urban life

Wednesday Argha-Wargha!

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Chortle! This stuff never stops, does it?

Today, the redoubtable Gerardo (Lawn Dude Par Excellence) herded his crew over here to prune the hateful palm trees. WHY the HELL do gringos plant those damn things in their yards?

The ones some previous owner installed here have got to be 50 or 60 feet high. They continually drop crap into the pool, and when they need to be pruned…well! WHAT a mess!

Just went out back to tidy up a bit, and found piles and piles and PILES of gawdawful trimmings covering the floor of the pool, where Harvey the Hayward Pool Cleaner was valiantly trying to suck them up…and getting clogged, clogged, and ultra-clogged.

Managed to unclog the pool cleaner. Farted around a bit. Finally thought oooooooooh fukkit! I’ll have to call the Pool Dude and hire him to clean up this incredible mess.

And won’t he be pleased!

Shoveled around and hauled around and got some of the crap out of the way. But Harvey the (expensive dammit!!!) pool cleaner is jammed with palm tree refuse. The bottom of the pool is COVERED with dead palm fronds…so many of them I can’t even begin to fish them out. Jayzuz! What a mess!

So I get out there in the 100-degree heat and start to haul as much stuff as I can reach and as much stuff as I can stand and hoooooBOY am i MAD!

Out of nowhere, Gerardo appears. He and his crew apparently went off for a coffee break (it being around 10 a.m.). He interrupts my debris-shoveling project and says he’ll clean it up.

Meanwhile, though, Harvey is stuck on the bottom of the pool — probably so jammed he’ll need the attention of a professional repair guy.

Sheeeut! This kinda crap makes living in some dumpy apartment look good. It even makes living in Sun City look good!

My thought is, I need to find a place in Fountain Hills (Whiteyville East) or icky Sun City (Whiteyville West) and just GIVE UP trying to live in a centrally located,, moderately normal neighborhood.

*****

Grrr grrrrrrr 

*****

Gerardo’s boys worked themselves to frazzledom. My GOD the amount and the misery of the work those guys do!!!!! In the frikkin’ HEAT.

Just now it’s 105 in the shade. Those guys were out there, God only knows HOW long, hauling and sawing and shoveling and…godlmighty!

Most of the debris is now picked up, off the bottom of the pool and raked out of the shrubbery. The rest can wait until this evening or (better!) tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, I need some grocery items. My son still has my car — and I don’t expect to get it back. It’s hotter than the HUBs out there, and so I do not want to hike to the Albertson’s, the Sprouts, or the Fry’s…nor do I think it’s safe to do so. So…nothing much here to eat for lunchoid…and it pisseeth me off.

Again, the Common Sense Lobe of the aging brain mutters, “Hey, Stupid! If you lived in that high-rise, you wouldn’t have to dork with a pool. You wouldn’t have to dork with palm trees. And a train would pull up to the door and take you straight to AJ’s.”

Financial Dude calls on the phone He wants to meet with me and M’hijito to talk about inheritance planning.

What IS he tryin’ to say to me???

***

If I’m gonna stay in this house until they tote me off to the graveyard, there’s gonna have to be some changes made. 

That pool is an expensive PITA. My next-door neighbor has drained hers.

Big money-saver, but an empty hole in the ground does trash the backyard. It really does trash the whole place, all the way around. Neighbor seems not to care: she’s never out there. One doubts if she even notices the mosquitos she’s breeding in the forgotten puddle. But I do like to sit on the patio and enjoy breakfast and dinner.

So…drain the pool???  Naaahhhhh…don’t think so.

Gerardo wants to chop down the accursed palm trees. WHY the gringos who move into this state think there’s some fantastical charm to accursed palm trees escapes me. But that’s probably because I grew up with accursed palm trees in the garden spot that was Saudi Arabia. Ugh!!!

At any rate, he and his guys did get the palm fronds pruned, But WHAT A MESS they left. And, we might add, that’s after they did the best they could to clean it up. Just now it’s too damn hot and the sun is blasting too damn hard for me to get out there and finish the job. So…ugh.

A box in the sky on Central Avenue begins to look good. 

Oh, well: pool. What about the pool?

Could one, I wonder, drain all the water out of the hole-in-the-ground and then set up the main drain so it stays open all the time? In other words, empty the pool and fix it so any rainwater gets drained off?

That sounds pretty iffy to me. Bet it wouldn’t work. Not without some expensive plumbing and replastering, I’ll bet.

It actually might be cheaper to sell the house and move to an expensive Box in the Sky. But…but…

But that’s not actually what I want to do. 

In the first place, I love this neighborhood and I like my neighbors. I don’t wanna move away from here! Seriously don’t wanna: if I felt that I wanted to go, I’d be outta here by now: in Sun City, Moon Valley, or Fountain Hills.

In the second place, I’ve lived in a tony high-rise. My mother was delighted to move us into a tower apartment in San Francisco, in an overpriced development called Parkmerced. And…well…

I didn’t NOT like that apartment. But I was just a kid. As just a kid, what did I see that I could do without today, in my dotage?

* Underground parking across the street. PITA to get your car into it, PITA to have to walk down six stories to get to your car, PITA to haul the car out of it…

* Neighbors. The critters make noise. As a kid, I thought the click click click click of the upstairs neighbors’  high-heels tapping across our ceiling was funny. Today that would drive me nuts.

* Neighbors.The serenade from their TV set: not so great.

* Neighbors. The stink of their cooking odors: not so great.

* Neighbors. The music of their brats hollering downstairs: not so great.

* Elevators. Claustrophobia central.

* Fire escapes. If there really were a fire someday, could we actually get out of this building over this tunnel’s stairs?

****

Y’know…this, my present neighborhood, is my Sun City. Yes. This is where I wanna live for the rest of my  life.

  • I don’t wanna be in a fancy high-rise on North Central Avenue. Nope.
  • I don’t wanna live in a cute (uninsulated, cheaply built) bungalow in the actual Sun City.
  • I don’t wanna move to ritzy-titzy Scottsdale.
  • I don’t wanna live in classy, spectacularly overpriced Fountain Hills, under the path of Sky Harbor’s passenger traffic.
  • I don’t wanna listen to the superannuated hard-of-hearing neighbor’s TV set BLASTING away at high volume.
  • There are not one but TWO major regional hospitals, right around the corner.
  • From here, you can WALK to a Fry’s, a Sprouts, an Albertson’s, and two fancy electronics stores.
  • Also within walking distance: a gorgeous, wild desert preserve, with hills and arroyos and wide-open spaces to hike.
  • I don’t wanna live in a holding pen for the decrepit, teetering on the edge of the next world.

One could go on and on…

My son’s screwing around with my car throws a monkey wrench into that nest of escapist joy. But y’know what? I could easily afford to buy a new car. All I need to do is walk down the street to the nearest dealer’s lot. Or, for that matter: walk across the street and hire the Uber driver who lives two houses to the west of mine….

 

Balmy Afternoon…

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5:00 p.m., Tuesday, June 17

…and…

It’s 108 degrees in the shade of the back porch!

My son, the redoubtable Caligula, still has my car. I guess he thinks he’s protecting me from myself.

Since I have exactly zero desire to go bucketing around in 108-degree heat, he can keep the damn thing. In the meantime, if the outdoor temp were reasonable, I’d have an eight-minute walk to the nearest grocery store. So…I don’t feel very concerned about it.

What am I gonna do about this latest Act of Arrogance, though?

Really, I haven’t decided. In theory, he has stolen my car. But…you can be sure I’m not about to press car theft charges against my son.

Sooo…we’re brought around to the question of do I care whether he’s glommed the car?

And y’know…the truth of the matter is probably not. Yes, I would like to get the money for it: it’s worth a few tens of thousands of dollars.

But y’know…the whole truth of the matter is that his li’l act of arrogance has demonstrated, spectacularly, that I don’t really need a car.

The neighbor across the street drives an Uber. He’ll take me wherever I please; and what the heck? If he’s not available, some other Uber or actual cab driver will be. I’m within easy walking distance of a Sprouts, an Albertson’s (huge supermarket), an El Rancho (downscale supermarket), an AJ’s (upscale supermarket), a Target, a Walgreen’s…and on and on. In other words, I don’t need a car for normal, day-to-day routine life!

Truth to tell,  I don’t need a car at all. Certainly not for everyday use. And…if something comes up that I do need a vehicle, there’s a place that rents cars within walking distance.

My inclination is not to retrieve that car of mine, and not to buy another car. Let the kid pay the taxes on it! 😉

Seriously: don’t replace that hole in the asphalt into which to pour money. Instead, hire drivers to schlep me around, and rent a car if a day comes that I really need one.

That need isn’t likely to last more than a day or three. And so…why own a car and pay taxes on it if you can provide for yourself more economically?

Heh heh!!!  If my father heard this line of reasoning, he’d think I really have gone balmy. 

Wow! Let’s Get This Straight!

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This afternoon I learned that someone near and dear to me has been telling people that I get sauced up on booze and then climb in the car and cruise around. Let’s get this straight:

I do not drive after I have been drinking. 

Yes. I do drink alcohol. Sometimes I do get sauced up. But I’m not in the car driving around in any kind of sauced-up state.

How do I feel confident about saying that?

Because I very rarely drive after dinner. And generally I drink only wine or bourbon: with dinner.

Dinner goes on the table after all the errands are run, after all the hoo-haw is done. My social life is such that I tend not to go out of the house in the evenings. Thus, if I’ve had any alcoholic beverages — which 99.9% of the time will be wine, taken with a full meal —  I’m not likely to be driving after consuming.

A couple of years ago (more, by now…), I did get into the habit of having a glass of wine or a bourbon & water in the afternoon, around a large mid-day meal. Did I go cruising after consuming this? Not likely: I would have had noplace to go. Why not? Because all of my errand-running and chores would be done before I started fixing and consuming a middle-of-the-day feast.

At one point, however, I realized that this was not a good habit: First, because it had me eating a lot more than necessary and therefore putting on some serious pounds; and second, because it indeed was leading me to drink wine or whiskey before all the day’s activities were done. So, I quit it.

Thus I can  testify, with real confidence, that I do not sit around getting sauced and then jump into the car and drive off into the sunset.

No idea how I can prove this assertion. Because I live alone, there’s no one here to testify whether and when I get sauced up. But surely, if I were cruising to the grocery store through an alcoholic haze, by now I would have accrued a citation or three. And no such things appear in my driving record.

What IS the matter with people, to say a thing like that about an old lady?

Gettin’ Old…and Stayin’ Free!

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My roommate at the University of Arizona had an aunt in Tucson who allowed herself to be persuaded (by my rm’s mother) to tell the university that we two girls were going to live at her house. (In those days, undergraduate girls were required to live in the dorms, unless they stayed at home.) We promptly moved into our own apartment. And lo! We escaped the Hell that was the University of Arizona’s dormitory system.

Well, that’s about how I see our present-day old-folkeries: as institutions of Hell. I most surely don’t want to live in such a place. NEVER AGAIN! I cherish my aloneness. I love living in my house. And when Ruby barks (corgis surely CAN bark!), she doesn’t bother anyone.  When a neighbor chooses to turn their TV to “blast,” the damn thing is far enough away that the racket doesn’t penetrate my bedroom walls. Or any of my walls!

So…how to stay out of some awful place designed as a prison for the useless elderly?

Back in the Dark Ages, old buzzards often – maybe usually – moved in with an adult child’s family. My great-grandmother, for example, lived with her daughter, whose own son and daughter-in-law lived within walking distance.

That, you may be damn sure, ain’t gonna happen in our time and in our space! 😀

Fastest way possible to drive my poor son nuts!

But…but…waitaminit here!

WHAT IF you didn’t live with the offspring, but rather within walking distance? Or within a few minutes’ drive time?

That would give the adult kid easy, fast access to you – and you access to them.

And…in my case, what would it do for me?

Well, it would put my heroic son within a few minutes’ drive – or even walk. So, he could rescue me from myself, when needed. Conversely, I could easily reach his place, even on foot, making it possible (even easy) to pester the bedoodles outta him. 😉

Seriously: it would make it easy for me to take gifts of food and other treats to him. Easy to haunt him when I have some PITA that needs a grown man to handle. Easy for him to pick me up and schlep me to the dentist (or wherever).

And thereby it would facilitate my living at home as long as possible: preferably until I croak over.

Voilà! I get my privacy and peace & quiet. He gets his mutther where he can keep an eye on the ole’ bat.

Welp…all those bennies are, in fact, a shade on the optimistic side. My son has, of all things, a JOB (remember those?). He works out of his home for a large international insurance company. This, as you might imagine, does keep him busy.

Very busy,

So he can’t be trotting back and forth to my house or chauffeuring me around the city.

Fortunately, the corner of this city where I live happens to be well stocked with conveniences. Within a couple of blocks, we have an Albertson’s (supermarket par excellence), a more or less competent computer store, a Walgreen’s, a T-Mobile, a Bookman’s…. on and on and ON. About 90% of the time, you really don’t need a car to supply your needs here.

Gilding that lily, the swell new lightrail train comes right up into the ‘Hood., northbound from the downtown district. And the city is building extensions that will carry passengers east and west  and, eventually, further north into the middle-class suburbs along the freeway. In another few years, I’ll be able to get out to the university without ever touching an ignition key.

Mercifully, the time for me to need to commute to campus has passed…”mercifully” because no, I do NOT enjoy being groped by fellow passengers on those trains, or hooted and yelled at by jerk drivers as I stand at a bus stop. But if few minor irritants bother you, these trains ARE the Business.

Now…admittedly, there are some benefits to locking yourself into an old-folkerie.  In my father’s case, for example, one day he sat down for a huge mid-day meal in the dining hall and…promptly had a stroke!

Staff members there recognized what was happening and called for help on the spot. MUCH faster than I would have been able to call, even though I was sitting right there beside him. And they knew exactly what they were talking about when they spoke with the operator. Help arrived within minutes…and it was help who knew what to expect and how to address the disaster under way.

That wouldn’t happen if I had a stroke as I was sitting at my dining room table here at the Funny Farm. Of that you may be sure.

Someone would discover my corpse a few days later – maybe. Probably gnawed on by a hungry hound.

At any rate: just now one option is, in fact, for me to stay right where I am.

Another would be for me to move closer to where my son is.

His place is within walking distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Gourmet Market, a few steps from the lightrail, minutes from two major regional hospitals. So…if I lived near him, I really wouldn’t need a car at all. I could use taxicabs if there were some reason not to walk, and in a real emergency, an ambulance would arrive within seconds.

Heh heh! JUST what my son needs, right? For his muther to move in three houses up the road! 😀

Ohhhhh well… It’s something to think about. If not to laugh about.

Ah hah! First Thing to Go Right This Morning!

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LOL! Here we are at Funny about Money…After only three tries to get online. 😀 By 5:30 a.m., this morning had already revealed itself as the start of One Of Those Days. Ugh! Whatever you touch goes wrong. Touch it twice, and it goes wrong with a vengeance.

This morning will start with a major misadventure: I have to WALK to the grocery store, way to Hell Gone halfway to frikkin’ Yuma.

Why? Because my son has stolen my car. 

Why? Because my idiot cleaning lady convinced him I was passed out drunk at the dining-room table.

No kidding!

When she was here the other day, banging around from pillar to post, I was feeling very sick. The peripheral neuropathy was driving me nuts; I hadn’t been able to sleep all night; and I hurt from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

So while she was roaring around the house, I sat down to the dining room table to have a bite to eat with half a glass of white wine. That accomplished, I stayed sat, folded my arms on the tabletop, and laid my weary head down.

She, in all her wisdom, decided this indicated I was passed-out stinko drunk! 

So, the Soul of Concern, she whips out her phone, snaps a photo of me with my head laid down on the table next to a half-empty wine glass, and emails it to my son!

He freaks. Charges over here. Even though I’m clearly not plastered, he thinks I must be — how could a genius cleaning lady like Luz be wrong, eh?  So he decides to confiscate my car! 

No kidding!

It’s now parked at his place, too far away for me to walk, and impossible to retrieve anyway because he no doubt has it locked inside his garage.

So now, the only way I can get groceries is to HIKE to one of the grocery stores around here, dodging drunks and panhandlers every step of the way.

Hey! It’s good exercise: adds an extra mile or two to the mile-long daily doggy-walk. But how am I supposed to haul a week’s worth of groceries two miles through 100-degree heat?

In an old laundry cart, that’s how.

Well, it’s 6 a.m. The Sprouts doesn’t open until 7:00 a.m., but the far less desirable Albertson’s will be open now. Wunderground predicts a temp of 105 degrees today…so I’d better get going before the sun rises any further.

What the fu*k IS the matter with people?????

Holy Sh!t….DUCK FOR COVER!

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KeeeeRAAP! Some ba*tard just shot at our cop helicopter!

The action took place a couple blocks to the north of the Funny Farm…maybe three. But definitely on our side of Main Drag North.

Call the dog — she’s loafing in the kitchen, and she sees no good reason to get up and leave her scrap-scavenging post.

Call the dog.

Call the dog.

Call the dog again.

At last the obedient beast decides to get up and roam over to see what I want. Who knows? Maybe the Human has food.

Coax her up the hallway and hit the tiles. 

Stay down until whatEVER-the-Hell is going on quits.

Cop Copter is hovering over our old house, the noise-collector a few houses in from Conduit of Blight Blvd. That’s about a block-and-a-half from where the Funny Farm stands.  We hunker down on the bedroom floor…and….

ohhhhhh shee-ut, here he is again, roaring over at roof-top height. 

WTF?

Stay hunkered.

At last the Copter swoops around and takes off into the north-easterly distance.

Lift the corgi onto the bed. Check the doors — for the third time! — to be sure everything is locked.

Climb onto the sack with the dog.

Holeeee krap, what a place!