WILL WordPress let me back in this time???
Hmmmmmm….. The answer would appear to be “Yep!” But…let us hold our wind and water…we don’t KNOW that it will let me post this squib. Ohhhh well...got nothin’ else to do just now.
M’hijito, my honored son, just called on the horn. He’s on his way out of town and all worried that I’m not competent to buy a bag of groceries. Or, more to the point, that I’ll try to walk to the grocery store (a distance of about three blocks) in the broiling heat.
{chortle!} What CAN one say?
* Yes, I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.
* I’ll call Uber and ask them to drive me the three blocks to the store.
* Don’t worry: if the dawg and I run out of food before you get back, we’ll just do without until you get here.
* Pass me the goddam bottle of wine.
See, the problem I have these days is that people don’t seem to recognize when I’m kidding. And I don’t understand why. ‘Cause I’ve always been something of a kidder. Why isn’t it obvious anymore?
Well, to be honest (and no, NOT kidding this time), it’s 105 degrees out there. And no, I wouldn’t be happy about my 80-ish mother wandering around, alone, in 105-degree heat.
And that’s what we’ve got right now, in the balmy shade of the back patio: 105 degrees. Hevvin only knows what it is in the full sun.
But…y’know…I’m stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid.
Of course I’m not about to junket up Conduit of Blight Blvd and across the parking lot at Conduit of Blight and Main Drag North through 105-degree heat. Soooo…WHY does he think I might actually be that stupid?
***
Okay….let us imagine some part of the agèd brain is still functional. How ARE we gonna get the chow we need?
Here in the ‘Hood, we have several possibilities for the agèd and the witless:
* Uber. This neighborhood is overrun with Uber cabs. If I wanted someone to drive me to a grocery store RIGHT NOW, I could call Uber.
* A train. It rides on tracks that run north and south past the Funny Farm, less than three blocks to the west.
* Busses. They run on the same thoroughfare; just not as often.
* Feet. The shopping center is only three blocks up to the north! Even in the blasting heat, a person in normal health (as I happen to be) is not going to expire from walking that far.
By the same token, neither am I about to pay a bus or a train to carry me three blocks to a store. Gimme a break!
* Time and the River Flowing… As a practical matter, in about six hours the sun will have gone down, the air will be much cooler, and walking up to that shopping center will be a simple and safe matter.
Yeah…WAIT until the sun goes down, forgodsake! Or start before the sun gets high enough to fry the landscape! How hard is that?
Oh well. Truth to tell, I wouldn’t have been real happy about my mother gallivanting in 105-degree heat. So I can’t bellyache too much!
Further truth to tell, though, the issue is not the ambient temperature. It’s the ambient humidity.
Ugh!!! As we scribble, it’s overcast out there (got that?: 105 degrees and cloudy!). And yeah, that does make for some real unpleasant heat — even dangerous heat.
So…yeah. Afraid it’s not a good afternoon to trot on over to the Albertson’s.