Coffee heat rising

Urban life

And I need a $15,000 car…WHY?

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If you read Funny about Money all the time, you know my honored son made off with my car some weeks ago. Purloined it right out of the garage, and stole the keys that go with it. 😀

Did he think this would create some lesson-building entrée into my life?

Hevvin only knows. Minds, I do not read.

But I’ll tellya, it has taught me a lesson: a very important lesson. And that is…HANG ONTO YOUR HAT!… as a resident of a major Southwestern American city, forhevvinsake I don’t need a car!

Got that? And can you believe it?

Four or six weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed it: not on your life!

But now, today, after several marvelously car-free weeks, I’ve come to exactly that conclusion: I don’t need a car! 

And in fact, it’s very probable that any one of us who lives in a major American metropolis does not need a car! 

Can you imagine? Two or three months ago, I sure couldn’t have.

Now, it’s true: when my mother and I lived in San Francisco, we did have my father’s beloved sedan at hand. But we regarded it not as our car but as his car. It resided several stories down in an underground parking garage. My mother would get it out when she and I wanted to traipse across the Bay to our relatives’ house in Berkeley: maybe once every two or three weeks. But otherwise: it just sat in there while he was off at sea.

When his ship came into port, she would retrieve his Chrysler, fill up the gas tank, and off we would go to pick him up at whatever dock his ship came into. But otherwise? The thing just sat there.

And now, here in Lovely Uptown Phoenix, I find I need a car even less than she and I did Back in the Day. No kidding:

  • Three major grocery stores within easy walking distance
  • A hair stylist about four blocks down the road.
  • A veterinarian right next door to the stylist’s salon.
  • Two major computer stores in the cluster that houses the grocers.
  • A lawyer a few blocks to the north.
  • A doctor’s office to the south
  • Two accountants straight across the street from me.
  • An Uber driver next-door to the accountants’ place….

Seriously: it goes on and on. I don’t need a car! If, by some fluke, I should need the services of a business or professional who’s not within walking distance, all I have to do is call one of the Uber drivers who live here in the ‘Hood.

Glorioski!

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Truly: what a GLORIOUS afternoon!  

Weather:

cool but not too cool
sunny but not hot

Neighbors:

Sittin’ around their front yards with the kids out
Kids: cuter than cute, having a great time running around

Ruby the Corgi:

Snoozing in the back bathroom
NOT lost, after all!

😀  As you may have deduced: a small surge of panic. Dog disappeared. Dog declined to come to call. Human could not find Dog anywhere in the house. Human about fainted in terror.

But eventually said Dog did materialize: yea verily, from the back bathroom where she likes to loaf, and where I didn’t see her while I was banging around looking for her.

If I had a little more ambition (and if my right hip weren’t quite so spavined), Ruby and I would walk over to the park, explore a bit, and then wander home.

This is the sort of time when I most miss the ineffable SDXB. He, as you may recall, moved to staid and stodgy Sun City, where he took up with the lively and charming New Girlfriend. 😀 I’ve lived in Sun City, thank you — that was where my parents settled after my father retired, dragging me there with them.

It’s really not my style, and truth to tell I hated being stuck out there during the four years of my university sojourn. So…soon as I finished school and got a job in Phoenix, I moved into town. Never EVER to move back to Sun City.

SDXB, himself the staid and stodgy type, bought a place and decamped out there a few years ago. He tried to get me to go with him, but…been there, done that, ain’t a-doin’ it again! He loves it, though, and shortly took up with a very nice New Girlfriend…for whom, quite frankly, I wish the best.

WhatEVER. Moi, I dearly love the kids playing outside in front. Just came in from a stroll and a visit with parental set: the young people and the toddlers and the dog or two…what more could one want?

😀 Really, it is a lovely neighborhood.

Why on earth would you want to live someplace where no kids are frolicking around?????

Beerless in Gaza…

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Well, that was one of the weirder junkets I’ve made in the past few years. 😀

It went like this:

* Out the door
* Wander up Main Drag West past the Prod church
* Stroll on through the Albertson’s, planning to buy…
*…to buy?
*…to buy WHAT?
*How’s about picking up a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! Too much bother to carry home
* Exit Albertson’s, empty-handed
* Stroll around shopping center
* See exactly nothing of interest
* Walk back to Main Drag West toward the house
* Pass Prod church again
* Enjoy kids playing outside in their yards
* Hike up toward the Funny Farm
* Arrive back at the Funny Farm
* Shouldn’t I have bought a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! What on earth for? I’m gonna hike six blocks, then  turn around and hike six blocks back home, to buy…to buy…what? A bottle of beer?

I’m crazy. but I’m not THAT crazy. 😀

Seriously: It was a pleasant short hike on a beautiful afternoon, to buy…NOTHING. 

Yet there was something strangely pleasing about having gotten out of the house, strolled a half-mile down to the store, strolled another half-mile home, and spent NOTHING on anything! 

Meanwhile, there in the yards we have kids playing, grown-ups puttering, pooches frolicking, soft wind blowing…what a perfect afternoon!

This, I need to do more often!

Spavined!!

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Actually, the spavined hip is beginning to feel noticeably better. Doesn’t mean it’s healed…matter of facts it still hurts. And hurts. And hurts…hurts…hurts…hurts.  But: doesn’t hurt as much as it did.

Whatever our grand physical therapist tried to do the other day, that didn’t help.  If anything, it made it hurt WORSE.

By this evening, the pain is back to normal: hurts, hurts, hurts…. 

Maybe, with any luck, in a few days it will recede back to something in the vague vicinity of normal. Not holding my breath…but hope springs eternal, eh?

Ain’t this nice? Our fine city leaders plan to jack the garbage collection rates by nigh unto 50%. Then to keep raising them every time we turn around. Makes life on a ranch in the middle of nowhere look better and better.

Seriously: if I were 10 or 15 years younger, that’s exactly where I’d be headed: back to the Gold Bar Ranch, out on the far end of the freakin’ Mogollon Rim.

I’m coming to hate this Los-Angelized city.

Seriously: I loathed living in L.A. Was sooooo relieved, all those years ago when my father retired and dragged us to Arizona. But now: WTF. Might as well be back in Southern California.

At any rate: what else is new?  

Our honored City Parents are getting set to gouge the bejayzus out of us again: a FORTY-SIX PERCENT INCREASE in garbage pickup rates!!!!!

Bastards.

Well. It makes moving to some other city look better and better. The only reason I haven’t done so is that M’Hijito is here.

And it’s safe to assume that will continue to be the case. As long as he lives in Phoenix, I’ll be here, too.

One of my friends installed a little house in her back yard for her parent. So…thereby they each had their own place and their privacy, but all the costs for utilities and trash pickup and yard care were shared.

Can’t imagine M’Hijito would put up with that. Too bad: it’s definitely a Thought!!

Ruminations on Ruination

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Egad! Get up and close that damn back door…NOW!

Seriously: the Dawg and the Human just sat down to take in the morning slack — coffee mug in hand, computer atop lap — and it dawns on the Human: Do not sit there with the back door hanging open, dammit!!!  Nay verily, not even if the screen door is closed and locked.

‘Cause, as we know, any clown and his/her little brother can kick or yank that screen open.

Sounds paranoid, eh? But I do hafta say: it feels more and more unsafe to me, living here in lovely Arizona. Especially in its (un)lovely cities.

Day or two ago, a Tucson woman was murdered at her home, apparently by a nut case. So…sitting around your house or patio taking in the morning air is decidedly NOT advised. Surely not around here.

So many of our fellow citizens are off the rails here in this crazy-making 21st Century — and it’s so easy for them (and us) to stock up on firearms — that really: You’d be nuts to loaf in your family room with the back door hanging open.

I never used to feel especially unsafe in my home, certainly not in the daylight hours. But lately that has changed…and I don’t think the change is a function of age.

No. It’s a function of the steadily growing insanity and violence around us. Not that humans haven’t always been crazy…but really, it does seem a lot more pronounced than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

Sometimes I think I should move out of uptown Phoenix — surely the suburbs would be safer. When I mentioned that to a cop during the great home invasion adventure, he remarked that there aren’t any places in the Phoenix metropolitan area that can be regarded as safe.

Really…when you re-read the post I put up at Funny after that little adventure, you hafta ask yourself: Why am I still living here???

What the HELL is the matter with me that I haven’t moved somewhere else? Somewhere far, far from here! Really: this house should have been on the market the next day after that episode…

But…but…WHERE would I go that’s any better?

Sun City, that fine mausoleum on the west side? 

Well, no: this kind of stuff happens out there. My mother lived in white-lipped terror all the time she and my father owned their Sun City manse. And I’m not interested in living in a ghetto for the aged and the cranky. No, thanks.

A box in the sky? One of the high-rise apartments along Central Avenue or in Scottsdale?

Well…I’ve lived in such a place. And…no thanks. Don’t wanna do that again. I’m just not in to communal living.

No communal living, eh? Well, then: how about back out to the ranch, just outside the wide spot in the road called Yarnell? Right up on the Rim…cool weather, lots of cows and sheep, plenty of room for the burglars to spread out comfortably?

Hm. Yeah, I did love the ranch. BUT: we didn’t live there 24/7. It was more of a weekend retreat for us. And y’know: I don’t think I would want to live out in the middle of nowhere 24/7. Besides, if a burglar/rapist/murderer can visit you in your city subdivision, what’s to keep him from visiting you on your remote ranch?

Basically…where there be humans, you be not safe.

Yeah: I’m afraid that’s a fact.

Or, alternatively:  I’m afraid. That’s a fact.

😀

 

 

Back Online! And Chariot-Free

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Hallelujah! Funny appears to be back online. Why, when, where? No idea. At any rate, we’ll soon see if this post goes up.

Meanwhile, our li’l world is toddling off to Hell on a handcart. (Can you toddle on a rolling thing?) Everybody that I know, just about, is sick as a dawg.

(Why are dogs thought to be sick, anyway?)

The purloined car is permanently gone. The Mayo/driver’s license issue is, I think (but am not sure) is still up in the proverbial air. I do have another doctor who says the Mayo doc is ridiculous and there’s no reason I can’t be driving…but truth to tell, I don’t feel much like barging into battle over the issue.

As more time passes, I find (more & more) that, given where I live and given the commerce all around here, I really don’t NEED a car to get by just fine. More than just fine, really.

Everything I need or crave, day-to-day, is available within easy walking distance. And for the stuff that’s not right around the corner, an Uber driver lives straight across the street!

Matter of fact, I’ve learned that at least half-a-dozen Uber drivers live right here in the ‘Hood. So as a practical matter, it really is true that you don’t need a car to live in this part of town, comfortably and conveniently.

That is a HUGE money suck that goes away forthwith! Riding on the lightrail, the busses, and the local Uber autos costs a tiny fraction of what owning a car costs. I’m now thinking I’m not going to bother to try to extract my license from those idiots at the Mayo or to retrieve my car from my son’s garage.

If he gives the car back or reimburses me for it, I’ll sell it and bank about 10 grand. That will buy a whole lotta Uber rides, eh?

Gosh. It’s almost like living in San Francisco. When my mother and I lived there, waaayyy back in the day, my father’s swell Oldsmobile remained parked in the apartment’s underground garage whenever he was off at work (he went to sea and was gone for weeks at a time). The only time my mother and I got that car out was to drive to Berkeley: there to visit the relatives. Most of the time, we rode the trains and busses. Or walked.

This, interestingly, changes the tenor of life in Phoenix.

Until recently, living here was more like living in Southern California than anything: hot, traffic-ridden, bourgeois, boring. But as commerce builds up and it becomes more feasible to get around on foot, it feels more like living in San Francisco, where you don’t bother with a car unless you have a long drive to make.

And y’know….since there’s a car rental place about three blocks from here, I may just get rid of the Dog Chariot altogether. Why own a hole in the pavement into which to pour money when someone else can own and maintain the thing, and you can rent one whenever you feel so inclined?