LOL! Here we go again.
JUST got my fanny sat down in a big comfortable overstuffed leather chair when ROOOAAARRR whirrrr whirrr whirrr… Yet another goddam cop helicopter soars over the house.
Naturally, Ruby is peregrinating around the backyard, whither she wandered through the open back door.
Set aside the coffee. Leap up, race through the kitchen. Call the dog…..
Call the dog….
Call the dog….
Obedient beast ambles idly across the yard and in through the door.
Good daaawg!
Slam the back screen and kitchen door shut. Lock the deadbolts on both. Amble back to my easy chair, next to which a cup of (cooling…) hot tea resides.
What.
A
Place.
And why do I persist in living here?
Well…I’d say because I’m here and I ain’t movin’. But the truth is, I do like it here in the northerly reaches of North Central Phoenix.
For one thing, there’s never a dull moment around this place. That’s f’r sure!
It’s centrally located but out from underneath the flight paths of the jets that roar in and out of Sky Harbor Airport all day and night.
We’re in a decent school district, which means the neighborhood hosts legions of laughing, cavorting kids. Not to be missed!!
It’s populated enough to support not one, not two, but three high-quality grocery stores within an easy stroll, plus a large bookstore, a nice hair salon, a computer store…and more that I have yet to explore.
Up at the corner, we have a superior car mechanic’s garage. Don’t have to get the clunk towed far to deliver it to those guys.
The city has installed a train that now glides back and forth between ASU West (on the west side) and the Tempe campus (on the east side). Truth to tell, for most purposes, you don’t have to own a car…or even borrow one.
The place gets more and more like a real city as the years slide past. In San Francisco, my mother and I didn’t even need to own a car: we could get everyplace we wanted to go by bus, by trolley, or on foot. Same in London. Same in Paris.
While that’s not true of everyplace in the L.A.-like Phoenix area, public transit here is already pretty good, and it’s continuing to evolve apace.
As a result, I no longer hate living in Phoenix (as I did in my early years stuck in this place). Matter of fact, I’m coming to rather like it. In another few years it will be a real city. And a pretty livable one, at that.
So that’s a good thing.
Then we have the ever-burgeoning crime level. The bloating cost of living. The mobs of people, people, and more people….
Oh well. You can’t not have everything, right?