This has been One of Those Day…y’know: when everything you touch goes s-p-r-o-o-o-i-i-n-n-g!!! But wth: with caveats.
Cleaning-lady day, bless her. She always makes me feel like a crotchety crank when I think reallleeee…i vant to be aloooone! The house isn’t too dirty (because I haven’t moved around for a good week or ten days), and as usual she’s getting it so sparkling clean it will glow in the dark. So that’s good.
Off to T-Mobile to continue the Project (and we DO mean with a Capital P) of trying to figure out how to work the iPhone my son gave me and refused to teach me to use. One of my choir friends is going to give me lessons when we meet for receptionist duty on Thursday. So by the time I see her, it should be fully functional.
I have fallen so far behind the times with this thing. The truth is…i do not WANT people to be able to reach me wherever i am…i do not WANT to chat with friends, clients, and telemarketers while I’m out and about…i do not NEED a phone to tell me where to turn left and where to turn right…and i have SOOOO HAD IT with the unceasing avalanche of technohassle that is Life in These Newnited States! gaaahhhhh!!!! But there’s no avoiding it. So I’m trying to climb onto the receding back end of the techno-haywagon.
From there up to Young Dr. Kildare’s office to explain that for reasons unknown I can NOT get into their annoying portal. His techno-lady says she fixed that.
We’ll see….
Back here via a visit to the gas station at 7th Street & the canal, embellished with a cruise through lovely Sunnyslope. Actually, I found a neighborhood that IS rather lovely.
This has become one of my casual hobbies…I love to drive around neighborhoods in this city! Which is one reason I thought I might be good at real estate: a new career in my dotage.
Historically speaking, Sunnyslope is an extremely interesting little burg. It’s always brushed off as “where all the people who came here with TB lived.” Hm. Maybe not so much.
From what I can tell, it had a very diverse working and lower-middle-class population, right from the git-go. It also had some (fairly eccentric) upscale folks, plus a passle of artistes.
By the early 20th century, what we know as “North Central” was largely citrus groves, pasture, and farmland. I can remember, in the late 60s, driving in from my parents’ house in Sun City to go to work downtown. I’d come in across Thunderbird, Dunlap, Peoria, or Northern, driving through mile after mile after mile of agricultural land. Really rather few citrus trees…but more cotton and corn and lettuce and onions and broccoli that you can imagine. Now all that land is growing houses.
So Sunnyslope would have been on the border between that farmland and the outer border of Phoenix…laid out along — surprise! the canal.
What else, hm?
Apparently, a fair amount of the housing in Sunnyslope was buiilt for farm workers. And a lot of that is still standing: two and three-bedroom bungalows on surprisingly HUGE lots. A lot of these appear along the canal, on both sides but especially on the south side. Today they strike one as exceptionally cute little places, perfect for a couple or small family — or a single person who doesn’t want to live in an apartment.
Gas pumped. Really feeling terrible, with ears SO congested that it’s giving me vertigo. So YDK believes, anyway: allergies, he theorizes. Right, Doc. Like I’ve never had allergies before? Hmmm… Contemplate the possibility of renting an apartment or cabin somewhere on the Rim for a week or two, just to see if getting out of the Valley Haze clears up the head. Then decide that’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Across Feeder Street E-W toward the ‘Hood, having opted a Walmart junket. Drop by the Funny Farm, where Luz is working her butt off, to grab my metal wallet thing of credit cards, which I’d forgotten. Pass a fairly alarming-looking bum sauntering along the sidewalk in front of the house. He’s over on Carol’s side, but still…right out front. Unlike most of the park bums, he’s young — or at least, not so road-worn that he looks older than Methuselah. He has a bright turquoise blanket slung over a shoulder, and he’s stalking right along, probably on the way to the park, no doubt having been left off on Blight by the accursed lightrail. Or chased off the lightrail, if a cop found him at the Conduit of Blight & Feeder Street stop. Remind Luz to keep the screen door as well as the regular front door locked…she does not need reminding.
Down at the T-Mobile, there to ask them if they can arrange to have the bills auto-paid through the credit union. The adorable T-Mobile Dude does me one better: gets it charged to AMEX, whereinat I will snare a percentage kick-back for each month’s bill.
Luz is about done. Taking the trash out, she asks if it’s OK if she can have some of the fruit from the trees. Of course I say “sure.” Most people don’t use the fruit that grows on backyard citrus trees — once again, I”m some kinda fluke. It would sound mighty chintzy of me to ask her not to take whatever she wants. {sigh} Oh well…my life won’t end, and she deserves them.
She’s on her way to Carol’s house, across the street. She’s parked her car in front of my house with the rear end jutting over my driveway, so I won’t be able to get my car into the garage until she leaves, another three or four hours.
Drat! 😀
Well, having consumed a glass of wine without food, now i can’t hold my eyes open. Sooo…off to bed for a nap!