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Urban life

By Golly! Missed This!!

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Leastwise, I think I did. Just poured a glass of wine, sat back, and logged in to write a post. And…and…

And HERE’S THIS THING! 😀 Apparently it never went online.

So, dear friends and honored foes: The rumination from a few days ago…

****

Is it only driving in Phoenix that I hate? or is it living in Phoenix?

Doggywalk this morning took us past the {former!!!} home of a friend and erstwhile neighbor, now long gone, terrorized out of the neighborhood.

She was a teacher at the local high school. Dunno what he did, but whatever it was, between the two of them they could afford a very nice, LARGE house right across from one of the nicest parks in the city. So presumably they were not living in penury.  Not that it matters…

One day two guys showed up at their front door. The residents answered the doorbell, and the guys barged in. Tied them up and tossed both of them into the tub in an upstairs bathroom. Then proceeded to ransack the house.

Incredibly, they didn’t bother to kill the couple. Eventually, one of the spouses managed to work free of the binding. Got the other one out of the bathtub. Called the cops.

No, the perps were never caught. This IS lovely uptown Sunnyslope, after all. But my friends promptly sold the house and moved away. Where? I dunno. Presumably as far from here as they could afford to get.

Makes me angry every time I drive or walk past the place. And…to walk the dog around the park requires…yes! Walking past the place. Driving to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts or points southwesterly requires…yes! Driving past the place.

And every time I do walk or drive past the place, I can’t help but imagine the terror they must have felt. And I can’t help but think I wish I could afford to move to a home comparable to my own, far far from here.

But…but…where would I go?

* Item: Because we’re officially part of a slum called Sunnyslope (even though ours is what I’d call an upper-middle-class neighborhood), I wouldn’t be able to get into anything comparable without diving deep into my retirement savings…or into debt. Which is to say I can’t afford a place like this in a safer neighborhood.

* Item: My honored son WANTS my house. He has repeatedly asked me (begged me; ordered me) not to sell. And I would very much like him to have it.

*Item: Noooo, I do not KNOW that he realizes the Hood is actually part of Sunnyslope: We could call this Item XXX and counting:

* I do not know if he realizes (any of the above).
* Nor do I know whether he cares (I don’t, much, except when the consequences slap me in the face).
* Nor can I imagine how much the consequences would affect him as opposed to the way they affect me.

*****

Just back from the nearest Leslie’s Pool store. They’re overpriced — many of the supplies there can be had much more cheaply from Home Depot or Lowe’s. However, for your money you get smart, experienced staffers who dispense invaluable advice.

Today, though, even the Leslie’s guy hadn’t a clue.

Out in the shed, I found a floater gadget that seems to be designed for…uhhhhh….something. But what? It’s not a pool tab floater. So…what is it?

So for the helluvit, I took the thing by that store and asked.

Leslie’s Dude allowed as how it appeared to be a pool gadget, yep yep. But WHAT pool gadget? He didn’t know any more than I do.

LOL!

So if I can catch Pool Dude — not an easy trick, as he ghosts in and out without making a sound — I’ll ask him what it is.

****

The brain remains numb, as it has been for weeks and, yea verily, months. I’ve assumed this was a manifestation of looming senility — seriously, some days I can’t remember my name, to say nothing of remembering anything important. But NO!

It develops that the cutely named “brain fog” lingers for months after a fine case of covid.

And we know I had covid last fall: it was diagnosed while I was visiting the ER at the Mayo Clinic. Apparently it takes six to nine months (!!!) to get over this manifestation.

Jayzuz!! No wonder the kid thinks I’m getting senile.

But much more annoying, as covid aftereffects go, is the endless tingling in the hands & feet and the endless ringing in the ears. Truly, truly crazy-making.

Not that I wasn’t already crazy…but really, I didn’t need another excuse to be nuts.

WTF??????

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An afternoon from Hell brought me home, through 40 minutes of cut-throat traffic, to a glass of wine, a wooden rolling chair in front of an uncomfortable desk, and — when I went to sign in to FaM’s dashboard — a frantic warning that Funny’s website has been phished and it was unsafe for me to proceed.

Sumbiche!

Well, here we are anyway, and honi soit qui mal y pense.

What.

A.

Day.

Started out with my son, who has arrogated communications with the Mayo Clinic unto himself, surfacing to emcee an online appointment with my doctor out there. That was actually fairly benign — much more so than I feared. So we chatted with the lovely, brilliant lady doc, mulled over how we can get some legal hoop-jumps done (a task made far more difficult by the recent demise of my beloved lawyer), and generally wasted time.

Speaking of wasting time, a few days ago I was talked into driving way to Hell-and-gone out to the Mayo’s Scottsdale clinic to join a hand-holding group of patients who are coping with the vicissitudes of senility.

Yes. I spent FORTY MINUTES on the road EACH WAY for the privilege of listening to a bunch of duffers reporting that they can’t remember things.

Right.

And yes. That is EIGHTY minutes round-trip, plus an hour of hot-air time. Jayzuz!

***

Meanwhile, my beloved laptop crashed. A service contract with Best Buy, then, landed the contraption in that fine store’s precincts.

This morning, in comes a call from Best Buy telling me the computer is fixed and ready to pick up. So…this afternoon, after some of the other dust has settled, I jump in my car and fight my way through Phoenix’s lovely surface-street traffic, over to Best Buy.

Get parked. Bound into the Store. Get in line. Stand in line stand in line stand in line stand….  Finally get up to the repair desk.

“You called to say my laptop is ready.”

“Huh?“

The guy denied having any clue that the computer was fixed and ready to pick up.

No…kidding.

So I was only slightly furious. Trudge back out to the car. By that point it’s after 4 p.m. Rush hour is in full, rabid swing.

And now here we are: I’m perched at (horrors!) an actual desk typing on an actual desktop computer and…and…grrrrrrrr…and I’m so tired I can hardly think. As you no doubt can guess from the quality of this copy…

Mean-meanwhile: seeking a lawyer for a lawsuit I may have to pursue. More about that later… It doesn’t look promising.

Here’s a fine drawback to gettin’ old: All the professionals and all the business people you’re used to working with have either RETIRED or DIED. Yes. All of them Sooooo… Now you have to try to find new lawyers, new doctors, new car repairmen, new computer techs, new…god help us all, dammit!

Ups and Downs…or…Downs and Ups?

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April 13 (I think)

Cox is down. Therefore the fake landline is down. And therefore (I guess…) for reasons unknown my computer can’t connect to the Internet.

Actually, if my vague understanding of these techno-issues is sorta correct, the “land line” is no longer a real land line, but just another ethereal connection to the wispy Internet. Meaning, therefore, that when the Web goes down, I can’t make a call out of the house for love nor money.

911? Ay señora! Not a faawwckeeng chance!

I could in theory use the iPhone my son gave me to do that…if I could figure out how. Unfortunately, when he gave me the phone, he refused to teach me how to use it. The plague came up right at that time, and so the iPhone classes up at the local senior citizens’ center were closed. And no, they’ve never reinstated those classes.

Yes, I did try taking a class at the Apple store. They plopped a half-dozen little old ladies – myself included – in the middle of the sales floor and set some poor woman in front of us to lecture us on how to work the damn things. You couldn’t hear her talking for love nor money…and no, I do NOT have a hearing problem.

Hmmmm…. Looks like we may be up again. Let’s try copying and pasting this over to a FaM post…

Grrrrrrrrrr!

Nope. It was up for a few minutes – seconds? – and is now nonfunctional again.

Hmmmmmm…. This thing is 95% charged. Let’s try hauling it down to the AJ’s… order up an iced coffee, park in the outdoor café….and try to see if it’ll work down there.

****

Nope. Decided I didn’t wanna drive through the afternoon rush-hour traffic. Ugh!

The back porch, despite its crying need for a clean-up job, is a lot more pleasant than AJ’s front patio. By far.

Ohhhh how I miss The Little Guy. 😀 That’s what SDXB used to call the proprietor of the coffeeshop we used to habituate, across the parking lot from the Walmart up on Gangbanger’s Way.

The backyard is no longer as pleasant for just hangin’ out as it used to be.

The kids — new(ish) inhabitants of my (former) neighbor Sally’s house — either haven’t the money or haven’t the sense to fix their roof-top air conditioner NOW, before it craps out. From the racket it’s making, it sounds like that eventuality will occur sooner than later. Rattle rattle rattle groan GASP.

***

And speaking of rackets (real and metaphorical), there’s the Cop Copter, flying around in circles directly to the south of us. C’mon, guys…kindly don’t chase the boys up in our direction…

Nope: looks like they’re going away.

M’Jiito and I get into an argument every time we try to have a conversation. That’s not helping things.

***

In other sylvan realms, HOLY GOD am I glad I no longer live in Saudi Arabia!

We knew that sooner or later the hatred between the Arabs and the Jews would come to this (and worse: just you watch!). Outside of camp, on the way to Dhahran you’d pass a big billboard that read AMERICANS GO HOME! In Arabic, so much of the dependents didn’t really register it.

What a horrible place for a foreigner to reside. We should, all of us, exit stage right and let the Arabs figure out for themselves how to extract their berjillions of gallons of oil, how to build refineries and turn it into salable stuff, how to build and operate ocean-going tankers to send it off to buyers.

More to the point: We need to free ourselves of dependence on people who hate us.

Solar power, folks. That’s what’s needed.

Far, far more than the average American realizes.

Most people seem to register that a functioning solar power grid would free America from a lot of problems, present and future. What they don’t seem to recognize is how soon we need to get that functioning and how urgently we need it.

Like…right now!

Smoke Alarm Hell

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Just about all the smoke alarms in the house are conkering out at the same time. It’s beep! to the left of you and beep! to the right of you and new beeps every time you turn around.

That’s not surprising. We installed these alarms when I moved in, so they’re…what? Eight or ten years old.

Replaced one. Didn’t do any good. the newer alarms are kinda junky. And getting the damn things up on the ceiling is a MAJOR hassle.l

They’re still beeping. A-A-A-A-L-L-L  N-N-I-I-I-I-G-H-T  L-O-N-G!

What a racket!

And I can’t reach them to pull them off the ceiling. Climbing up on a ladder at this age, as a scarecrow of osteoporotic bones, is NOT a good idea. And my son is too busy to come trotting down here and fart around with a bunch of fire alarms.

So I didn’t get any sleep last night, not to speak of.

Ruby and I are back from the park, but no food has been served up to the Human. Hmmm…

What I’m thinking is that when the shops open — which will be very soon — I’ll go up to the hardware store and buy a whole new bunch of smoke alarms, along with as many new expensive 9-volt batteries.

Instead of sticking them on the ceilings, I’ll put them on top of the bookcases — which in three rooms reach almost to the ceiling. And on top of the refrigerator, and atop the old TV cabinet that now serves as a linen closet in the spare bedroom.

We have one in the hallway, which I believe is relatively new. And the one here in the office is newer. The one in the kitchen…middling newish. The others — (former) TV room, family room, living room — are getting old. They could stand to be replaced, I reckon.

The house was equipped, when I bought it, with a hard-wired fire alarm in the garage. It’s still out there…and I have NO idea whether it works. Nor do I see a way to test it. So…it might be a good idea to put another of these chintzy little battery-run numbers out there. Just in case.

Y’know…the whole Home-Ownership thing is getting kinda old. I’m beginning to see why the idea of moving into Orangewood — a life-care community — appealed to my father. He must have been getting real tired of doing maintenance and repairs on that house in Sun City.

Well, I don’t wanna consign myself to a prison for old folks. BUT…this city has some high-rise apartments that are fairly swell. I’m thinking it might be good to move to one of those.

My son opposes that scheme. I suspect that’s because he wants this house. And I would have to sell it to get myself into a fancy condominium.

On the other hand, when I croak over — which shouldn’t be that much longer — he’ll inherit enough to buy three of these houses.

Hmmmm….  Maybe what I should do is just give this house to him and spend half my savings to move into a high-rise.

Doesn’t sound wise, does it.

Nope. Not wise.

There’s gotta be a way….

Wow! What a ZOO!!!!

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LOL! Just back from the neighborhood park, along about 6.p.m. What a MOB over there!

So crowded was it, I was thinking it was a weekend. (When you don’t have to go to work, you never know what day it is…) But no! It’s a Tuesday afternoon!

You never saw so many people in your life! I counted EIGHTY cars parallel-parked along the north side. That’s just the street parking…along just one of the three bordering streets. Doesn’t count the parking lot in the middle of the park.

It’s kinda fun, because there are lots of kids, some of them playing baseball and soccer and volleyball, many just running around. But also there are a lot of dogs — some of them off-lead. And so I have to keep wrestling Ruby to evade fights.

The park is the crown jewel of our neighborhood. There’s only one other neighborhood in the city limits that has a park even faintly like it. Another one is out in Scottsdale, a long way from here. And there’s one on the west side, where the neighborhood around it is a little sketchier. So our park attracts folks from miles around.

At any rate, it was just crazy over there. Trying to keep Ruby from engaging in dog fights was…well…trying. Usually I do avoid the park on the weekends, because of the crowds. But…but…this isn’t a weekend day!!!!!!! It’s Tuesday.

So somehow I’ll have to figure out a way to avoid that mess.

Ruby dearly loves the park, because it has…WOW!! Grass! My yard, like most in these parts, is desert-landscaped. The grass must seem like some sort of miracle carpeting to her. But after this, we’ll have to go over there in the mornings or early afternoons, when the kiddies are in school.

M’jihito just called, having knocked off work along about 6:30 or so.

I do not think I would like to have to work from home — not to have any choice in the matter. That’s now the case with M’jihito: his employer, a large insurance company, shut down their offices, having discovered — thanks to the plague — that their employees can get their work down at home just fine, at no cost to the company.

When I was at the Great Desert University, I did manage to get them to let me put some (at first) and then (later) most of my courses online. That, I liked. But…it was my choice. I was not informed that I had to completely revamp my courses and my work habits so as to work remotely at all times.

Nor was I managing any underlings, unless you regard students as sort of like lower-level employees. He has to ride herd on a bunch of insurance agents, all of whom now are working out of their homes, too. That strikes me as not the best of all possible worlds.

***

And now it’s after dark. Quiet (not always the case in these parts). The dawg is zonkered out on the bed. It’s heading toward 10 p.m., so I reckon I’m gonna call it a day, too.

And so, awayyy!

 

So there!!!

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LOL! The latest set of exterior decorations is now mounted on the front gates and doors.

😀

Gawdlmighty, i’m sooooo obnxious, even I think it’s funny!

Probably just like your neighborhood, the Funny Farm’s ‘hood is overrun with nuisance door-to-door solicitors. Some of these folks are peddling junk; others are trying to get signatures on petitions. Sooooo…it’s ringy-dingy-bingy-bong at the damn front door, practically every day. Dawn to dusk.

A year or so ago, I got the bright idea of putting up signs saying, in effect, “Please don’t ring the doorbell. No Solicitation.”

As you know, these normally have little effect on the legions of nuisances. Sooo…I decided to make the message a little stronger.

On side gate to the front patio:

PLEASE NO SOLICITING!

We’re not interested in what you’re selling.
We’re not interested in your political campaign.
We have already signed your petition, or decided not to.
DO NOT PESTER BY JANGLING THE DOORBELL, PLEASE!

AMAZON * UPS
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

On the front gate to the same patio and on the same side gate to that patio:

AMAZON:
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

 

On the security screen at the front door:

NO SOLICITING
****
NO PETITIONS
****
Please!!!!!!!!!

Interestingly, this barrage of messages works!

LOL! As you may gather, these people are almost as pesky as phone solicitors. So a sign that says PRIVATE does exactly no good. And about 10% of them ignore “NO SOLICITING” SIGNS. But apparently beating the sleazes about the head and shoulders with your message gets through to most of them.

Now. If you could only do that with the phone….

Heh… Our neighborhood techno-guru, Will, set up a video system at his front door. So…he can and does capture the antics that happen in front of his house, when Amazon and UPS trucks turn up with thieves’ cars in tow. There’s one woman, in particular, who follows the Amazon truck around in her car, waits till the delivery dude drives off, jumps out of her car and grabs the delivered packages, runs back to her car, tosses them into the back seat, and takes off down the road after the Amazon guy.

Is Amazon Guy aware of this? Could they be in cahoots?

Hm.

As likely as not, I’d say. You’d think after awhile he’d notice he’s being followed. But…it’s gotta be a mind-numbing job. Maybe, just maybe he really doesn’t notice.

Anything’s possible. I guess.

At any rate, for the nonce the “no soliciting, no petitions” message is working. Now…if only I could make that work on the phone!