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Urban life

Another Day, Another Little Cri$i$

by

Homeownership: The Continuing Adventure. What a joy!

Tuesday, June 18

Today’s frolic is a busted door lock. A new workman. A pile of new bills.

Yes. The back door lock jammed. Got it unjammed, but in the process busted the door knob. This made it impossible to secure the door closed.

Fortunately, all the house’s exterior doors are double-secured with heavy-duty steel security doors, locked with heavy-duty monster locks. So: no problem with the local burglars.

The  problem is getting the damn thing fixed.

Called my favorite lock company. Along about mid-afternoon, their guy showed up. Dorked around a bit with the mess: the whole doorknob set had fallen off in the course of my fiddling with it.

So. Yeah. Now he’s ordered a new lockset. He’ll be back to install it whenever the hell it comes in. Ducky.

Good thing, eh, that this neighborhood is such a sh!t-show that all exterior doors need to be graced with them thar heavy-duty steel doors. Otherwise the dawg and I would have to go somewhere else to spend the night. Yes, Virginia: that IS how unsafe it would be to spend a night here without lockable steel screen doors.

Isn’t this cute? WordPress seems to have dropped the feature that lets you enter a color for passages of your font. So that does a number on my habit of using red type as an accent for FaM posts. Ducky.

*********

Wednesday, June 19

Jeez. Never did get this posted. But I did (re-)figure out how to enter colored type. That’s somethin’. I guess.

A fine series of catastrophes has ensued since last I scribbled here.

Just now my car sits in the garage, basically undriveable. I think I can get it started (haven’t tried). If so, it goes straight to the Goodyear garage. If not, I’ll have to walk up there, a 15-minute hike through the humid heat, dodging creeps every inch of the way.

boyoboy, i can hardly wait.

Welp, one nice thing about it is that this pre-empts the proposed journey to Sun City, there to do battle over my parents’ ashes.

Under the best of circumstances, that would be something I do NOT wanna do. With a car that may just barely be limping along, that journey is officially out of the question.

****

The most colorful of our adventures struck in the middle of the night. Along about two or three in the morning, the car’s horn started to blare.

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

ON AND BLASTINGLY ON…

…and I couldn’t turn it off!

My garage is right next to my neighbor’s bedroom. So that meant this serenade was slamming her awake even more colorfully than it was blowing me out of the sack.

Finally, after about 45 minutes of this, I managed to shut it down. How, I do not know. No clue why it finally went off…unless it broke the horn altogether.

Evidently, it’s some kind of vandalism. But how the midnight creeps did it, I do not know. This morning I took it by the Goodyear garage up on the corner.

They didn’t have a clue.

Took it over to the Toyota place this noon. They didn’t know, either.

No way could anybody have gotten into the garage. So whatever they did, they accomplished it remotely.

Hope it doesn’t happen again tonight. If it does, I dunno what I’ll do.

There is a police station up in Sunnyslop — not one that’s easy to access. And there’s a fire station down south on one of the main drags. If it starts again tonight, I guess I’ll have to drive to one of those places and see if a manly type there can shut it off.

And now to our moment at hand…

One ringie-dingie

Two ringie-dingies

Three ringie-dingies

Caller ID: “Spam”

Pick up the effing phone.

* And what would you want, Spam?

* Uhhhh…heh….

* GET OFF MY F***ING PHONE AND STAY OFF MY F***ING PHONE!

Man! Am I sick of the goddamned phone solicitors!!!!

Seriously: phone solicitation ought to be against the law. What a f***in’ NUISANCE!

****

…and…

GAAAAAHHHHH!

****

Wonder-Cleaning Lady has apparently — once again — deep-sixed the window squeegee.

She seems to have hand-washed (call that “hand-smeared”) the west-facing Arcadia door. What a mess!

So I go to get some paper towels and the squeegeee and the window cleaner and…

and…

and…

NOPE!

No squeegee, anyplace to be found!

DAMMIT! This is the second time she’s done that.

But WHY does she do it? Why not just tell me that the damned squeegee wore out?

Tried to clean the window with Windex and paper towels. Got approximately 10 feet x 12 feet of smeared glass.

{sigh}

I should get off my duff and go get another squeegee right now, shouldn’t I?

Wonder if Albertson’s carries them…

DARN it, I don’t want to go out into the traffic (again!) in a no doubt futile trip to buy a squeegee. Guess I should order it from Amazon, eh?

Hmmmm… Six bucks, plus delivery charges.

On the other hand, come to think of it…the last thing I ordered from Amazon — a bottle opener — has never showed up.

I think what’s happening is they’re delivering packages to the wrong address. We have two streets by the same name here, running parallel: Erewhon LANE and Erewhon WAY. Delivery and service folks get them confused all the time. For Amazon, I add to my address in ALL CAPS “Erewhon WAY, not Lane!”

Guess if you could read, you’d have a better job than trundling around delivering packages.

Actually, that’s not fair. The porch pirates here actually follow delivery trucks. Stop in front of the mark’s house. Jump out of their car. Run up to the door. Grab the package. Run back to their car. Drive off after the truck.

One of the neighbors, a techie guy who delights in gadgetry, set up cameras at his front door and caught this caper in action. So…that’s probably what happened here.

Well, I’d better get off my duff. Now I need both a squeegee AND a bottle opener.

And so…{grrowwwllll} AWAYYYYY!

Losing What Little Remains of My Mind…

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At this rate, it doesn’t take long to lose it all….that’s f’r sure!

GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! 

How can I say how baroquely I have had it, had it, HAD IT with life in the fu*king 21st century?!???

* How do I hate the electronic detritus?

* How do I hate spending day after day after day without seeing another live human face?

* How do I hate wrestling with hardware — of all varieties?

* How do I hate wrestling with software — of all varieties?

* How do I hate struggling with chores that used to be done routinely by workmen?

* How do I hate having the car’s mechanical work done by some chain-store operation, instead of at the defunct small-town-style Chuck’s Garage, with the trusted, reliable, and faithfully HONEST Chuck in charge?

Gerardo (Yard Dude) and his guys trimmed the effing palm trees that some idiot prior homeowner planted around the effing pool.

Every time they do that, they dump equipment-busting detritus into the drink. It takes a good hour to fish it all out and vacuum the leaves and grit off the bottom of the effing pool. In 110-degree heat. The result: I’m not only at the end of my rope just now, I’m far, far beyond it.

That is literal truth. Just now I’m sitting in the family room, sweat rolling off my face and soaking into my shirt, YELLING at the goddam computer because my fingers will NOT hit the keys and all I want do is MAKE IT GODDAMN STOP!!!!!!!!!

arrrrrrrhhhhhggggg

I need to run down to the Sprouts and pick up something to eat. But honestly…I’m afraid I’ll kill somebody (possibly myself included) if I get in the car and drive off down the road.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I ask you. What kind of MORON plants PALM TREES around a flicking swimming pool?

An Arizona gringo moron (probably imported from Ohio), that’s what kind.

Mr. & Mrs. WonderAccountant had their accursed poolside palm trees cut down. No doubt…uh oh. ….Ohhhh shee-ut. Has the accursed pool pump cut out? Hold the phone…

*****

Nope. It’s still running.

Why does it look, from here, like it’s stopped dead?

Optical illusion, apparently.

If only all of life in the desert were an optical illusion…..

MAKE IT STOP, LORD!

by

7:14 a.m., and it’s already ONE OF THOSE DAYS!

Out the door with the dog as dawn cracked. We try to get an early start by way of avoiding the Dog Parade: everybody and his little brother, sister, cousin, aunt, and uncle is out by dawn at this time of year. Especially on a day like this: it’s hot, humid, incredibly muggy.

Around the circuit we go, dodging dogs as we trot along. Hotter. Muggier. Ickier. After an hour of trudging, we round the corner up the street from our house, and….

DAMN!!!!!

There’s Gerardo and his guys up in the palm trees, hacking out dead fronds and dropping them into the pool.

The pool that was just cleaned the day before yesterday, to the tune of a bracing bill.

Heh! Today the tune is ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROOOOOOOAAARRRR: blowers and gasoline-powered saws going full-tilt.

Now I’ll have to call Pool Dude and pay him AGAIN to clear that mess out of there. Gerardo’s guys will try to clean it out as best as they can, but they don’t have the equipment to really do the job.

Fine way to start the day, hm?

Already tired, hot, sweaty, frantic-made, and depressed.

Walked by my friend Marge’s house while we were out. Pretty clearly she’s no longer there: either she’s passed, or they’ve dragged her off to the dreaded old-folkerie.

It’s kind of a cute house, in a bourgeois way: classic Southern California tract house. The neighborhood is nice, occupying what once were horse pastures and cotton fields. This area was all rural when I used to drive through it on the way from my parents’ house in Sun City to my job in downtown Phoenix. Now: all Mittel-America.

Marge had paid off the house, figuring to leave it to her son when she died. But he pre-deceased her. So presumably it will go on the market in the near future.

It’s a ways from the Bosnian Empire. But…frankly, I wouldn’t want to live there, even though the street itself is extremely pleasant.

* It’s just a block from Main Drag North, once a country lane…now more like eight lanes. It’s a major commuter thoroughfare in from the west side now, just PACKED with traffic during the rush hours, and pretty frantic any other time of day. Too much noise, to much carbon monoxide, too many fruitcakes.

* The houses are pretty old, and so require constant maintenance and repairs. My house is expensive enough in that department…and in comparison to Marge’s place, it’s a mere youth.

* Speaking of expense, all those houses up there are on irrigated lots. While this keeps the water bill down — flood irrigation doesn’t use city tap water — it means you have to maintain a third of an acre (or more) of grass. You don’t even want to know what Gerardo is gonna charge for working on those damn palm and citrus trees this morning. And I have gravel landscaping…so he and his guys don’t have to mow every week or two.

With increasing frequency, I contemplate where I would like to move, if I could get away from here.

SDXB and NG are in Sun City — last I heard from him, he appeared to be about on his last paws. He’s not answering the phone and not returning calls…so I figure if he’s still living, he’s probably in a hospital or old-folkerie.

Personally, I’ve lived in Sun City, and I ain’t a-doin’ that again.

Truth to tell, there really isn’t anywhere I’d rather be than here. And…for what it costs to get yourself into one of those warehouses for old folks, I could hire someone to come in and take care of me.

With the Baby Boom Generation entering senilitude, there are more and more businesses and organizations that will come to you and keep you going until you’re on your last paws. Recently learned about an outfit that will come to your house and bring food to you. Plus we have an army of freelance cab drivers out there in the form of Lyft and Dial-a-Ride — on top of the traditional taxi services. Frankly, I think if you know what you’re doing, you probably can arrange to get all the services that you’d need delivered in your home.

Now, I expect, is the time to find out about those businesses and create a list of them, with contact info.

“Good” Morning, America!

by

Holeeee mackerel! 6:42 in the morning and it’s already a Day from Hell!

Big Hell-ism: At 6:40 a.m., temp was slated to reach 112; humidity is already 26%. It’s like a swamp out there.

Just back from the daily doggy-walk. Got out early in an effort to avoid the Dog Parade.

FAIL!

Cassie-off-leash
The endless doggy walk…

Come dawn each morning, everybody and their little brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins are out there traipsing their dogs through the ‘Hood.

And that means a potential dog fight about every 20 yards.

At least we didn’t run into too many morons who think of their dogs as kiddies who “just want to pwayyyy.”  So I didn’t have to drag Ruby out of any dogfights. That’s refreshing.

I guess.

Homeward bound, we pass the entrance to the alley behind the Funny Farm. Glance down there…

HOLEEE sh!t. Someone has piled a HUGE stack of yard debris up against my back gate!

So I can’t take my trash directly out into the alley. To empty the garbage, I have to go out through the garage (front of the shack), traipse through the front yard, and hike around two corners and then up the alley to the garbage cans that are parked next to other neighbors’ back gates.

Yes. In 110-degree heat.

And yes: leaving the garage door hanging open, even for the brief period required to traipse around the block, invites every passing bum and burglar to c’mon in. That means I have to retrieve the keys and lock the door into the kitchen…not that big a deal, but another addition to the Hassle Factor.

Assuming Gerardo’s boys did that (they were just here a couple days ago), I called him and asked them to have them pick it up.

He was puzzled: that’s not the kind of thing his guys do. They have a big trailer for the purpose, which they haul to the county landfill several times a week.

Chances are they didn’t do it: some asshole who didn’t want to be bothered with hauling it off probably dumped it outside my gate. But he did say they would come and get the stuff.

Besides blocking access to the garbage can, that pile of dried brush out there makes a huge fire hazard. And if you don’t think the bored bums and the bored teenagers around here will toss a lit match or cigarette into it…well…think again.

Makes living in a high-rise apartment look might tempting, doesn’t it?

Here We Go Again…

by

Grab your pistol and turn out the lights… WHAT a jolly place we live in. Never a moment of boredom around here.

The cop copter is buzzing the block north of the Funny Farm, racing up and down the street I used to live on and the street SDXB used to live on. In between zips over those houses, he’s also cruising up and down the alleys. Presumably another burglar or wannabe rapist.

This stuff has gotten so old, it no longer alarms me. Drag out the pistol? What on earth for? If our boy tries to come in the garage door, Ruby and I will run out the back bedroom door. Screw’im.

What a garden spot, indeed! But…it turns out that what we have here is pretty typical of the climate all over the Valley. This morning the news regaled us with a tale of prowlers and burglars in a spiffy Scottsdale neighborhood. And one in a North Phoenix tract of suburban ticky-tacky houses. And…on and on…

ohhhh welll… The doors and windows are all locked. The dog is on the bed, prepared to go off like a squealing fire alarm if anyone tries to come in through the garage or side-yard slider.

And I yam pouring another glass of wine…

Y’know, I do like to have the cops flying around, chasing the local perps. At the least, they’re making trouble for the sh!theads; at best, they’re either chasing them off or arresting them. But…it still does give me the willies.

Over to Facebook: the locals often post updates on what the cops are up to. Several folks here stay tuned in to the police frequency.

Nope…nothin’ untoward there. The usual pleasant chatter and idle gossip. Love this neighborhood!

Somebody rescued the cutest little kitty you ever saw.

A new resident reports his and his family’s experiences and unexpected pleasure at being here.

We’re told a new bakery has moved into the site occupied by the Late, Great Karl’s Bakery, much lamented, vocally lamented, {sob!} lost and gone forever. This week I’ll drop by and see what the new guys have got to offer.

The eminent Tony has found a bighorn sheep cruise(!!). Can you imagine such a thing?

I can’t. Hardly. 😉

And further ruminating…

by

Yes. When you’ve lived in a neighborhood long enough to become a historic fixture, your brain is filled with layer on layer on layer of memories.

Just now the adorable young father of the incredibly adorable young kids in the house behind us, spouse of the spectacularly adorable young mother, is out in the backyard mowing grass. The kids are giggling and hollering and carrying on. The sun is setting and the evening is turning to dusk.

Oh, my,… HOW Sally, the former resident of that house, would be delighted to have that lovely young family in there. She and her room-mate: oh indeed, they would be thrilled.

The two women were grade-school teachers. Old Maids. Having never married, when they met each other on the job and figured they could tolerate each others’ company, they decided to go in together to buy a house in a lower-middle-income neighborhood of lovely (ahem: terrifying) Sunnyslope.

As it developed, SDXB moved in right straight across the street after I booted him out of my house, a block to the north and a block to the west.

So it was that we became friends with the Old Maids. And what fine neighbors they were.

Sally’s companion eventually passed away. Sally, seeing the end in sight herself, sold the place and moved into an old-folkerie. Time passed. SDXB, in terror of Tony the Romanian Landlord (he who threatened the judge in the lawsuit we won), moved to Sun City. I, having lived in Sun City once and decided that was quite enough, refused to go. Instead, I got out a number of…uhm, toys…armed myself to the teeth, scared the sh!t out of my lawyers, and cooed, Tony, make my day!

One of Tony’s sterling characteristics — he has several — is that he is no fool. Yea verily: he is very, very smart. That being the case, he proved it by refraining to commit any new criminal frolics.

The dust has now settled. Tony and his lovely Pretty Daughter are deeply engaged in building their rental empire, and I’m still here. And…no one has had to make my day. ;-D

Because — of course — Tony is no fool.

Tony’s sweet and intelligent and horribly beaten-down Other Daughter lives two doors up the street from the Funny Farm. She is an excellent human being, IMHO. If I dared…if she dared…we would make good friends.

Oh, well.

The upshot is, she and I are not enemies. 😀

***

I don’t know if Tony is a good man. But I believe he is more than that: he is a great man.

Yes. In his context, he is a great man. He has accomplished feats that you and I could only fantasize about….partly because we couldn’t conceive of them and then, even if we did, couldn’t figure out how to pull them off, and partly — mostly — because none of us would be willing to work that hard.

Seriously: the things he has accomplished have simply defied belief. And if you stood back and watched him, the sheer amount of hard work he poured into those feats would boggle your little Yankee mind. He is, truly, an incredible man.

****

Is that why I’m not afraid of him?

Possibly. I’d like to say I’m not afraid of him much. I’d like to say I respect his intelligence and his ambition enough to know he’s not doing to fuck himself up.

But then there’s my Daddy. Yeah. The Daddy who taught me not to to be afraid of a helluva lot.

Who knows?

The truth is, Tony is dangerous. The truth is, Tony is too smart to engage that quality. The truth is, Tony is not gonna put all that he’s worked so hard for at risk. The truth is, my Daddy was right: stand your ground. The truth is, because Tony is no fool, he’s not very dangerous.

Bless’im.

Ohhh those beautful playing children. How I wish Sally could be here to be the melody of their laughing!

Stand your ground, Dear Daughter…