It’s already 8:30 and the day is brain-banging GORGEOUS. Beautiful clear skies. Balmy temps. Dawg yapping at the passers-by. What more could anyone want, eh?
Well…hmmmm… Absence of pain, for one thing. Whatever went wrong with my hip is still wrong. Hurts like the dickens to get out of a chair, to say nothing of limping across a room.
Ohhh welll…. Thæs overrode; swa may thisse…
Pool Dude came by this morning, bless him! (oooooohhhh beloved Pool Dude!!!!) He left a bill instead of waiting three minutes so I can write him a check. So, alas, the much-deserved payment for his work will have to wait a week to be delivered.
Rummaging through The Economist, one of my fave periodicals, I come across a spread on (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, the hell-hole where I grew up.
Doesn’t sound like it’s a whole lot better than it was in the 1950s. Sure am glad I’m not there now!
Hmmmm….here comes some sorta air-borne vehicle. ……naaaahhhh…. It drifted off to the north. Dunno what it was: not a prop-driven airplane or a jet, that’s for sure. ohhhh well….
The kids who bought Sally’s house (right behind the Funny Farm) put these stupid rotating vents up on the roof. They make a racket whenever a breeze blows. Dunno how the kids can stand it! I’d have blasted the things to Kingdom Come by now.
They also got some guy to patch the roof…with shingles that don’t match the ones that were installed when Sally lived there. That’s…cute.
What IS the matter with people?
Makes a high-rise on North Central Avenue look good. And that’s sayin’ something.
Hmmm…something terrible.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating just such a high-rise as a possible alternative to moving into the horrifying old-folkerie called The Beatitudes. An apartment stuck on the N-teenth floor of an old-folks’ storage bin does NOT appeal to me. A private apartment in a 15-story rabbit warren doesn’t look much better…but…
On the other hand, I know my son would like to have this house — the sooner the better. And I’d sure like him to have it. But not at the cost of my having to move into some garden spot that I’d wish I’d never seen.
It’s crossed my mind to suggest that he and I trade houses. Then he’d have this place and I’d have his pretty little 1950s red-brick bungalow, within strolling distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Yuppie Supermarket.
Trouble is, those houses were built before there was such a thing as air-conditioning. They were “cooled” (after a fashion) with whole-house swamp coolers. These are none too efficient…as a practical matter, the residents in those days just spent the summers up north, in the high country were the weather was tolerable.
And the houses are, as is appropriate for swamp cooling, leaky boxes. So when you turn on the air-conditioner, you’re actually air-conditioning the whole damn block.
Hmmmmm…. Another strategy we could undertake:
- I buy his place.
- He moves in here.
- I sell his place, and…
- Use the proceeds to buy an apartment in a Central Avenue high-rise.
Probably couldn’t get enough for his house to get into one of those little boxes in the sky. But…hmmm…really, what do I care? I’ll only be here for a few more months or years — a decade at the very longest. No reason why I couldn’t decamp to a box in the sky, paid for on time. Lots and lots of time….
My mother and I lived in one when we took up residence in San Francisco after we left (un)lovely Saudi Arabia. I loved the place!
Now, I’m not a 12-year-old anymore, and so I no longer regard running up and down the interior fire escapes as an entertaining pastime. But still… Those places are just a few blocks down the road from the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Grocery Store. The train goes right past the front and will drop you off at the store. Mwa ha ha! I’d never have to drive again!!