Coffee heat rising

Good Morning, Dogmerica!

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Scarfety chomp munch munch scarf scarf chomp…  Ruby’s way of greeting the morning. Arf! we say to that.

Lately back from the ayem tromp around the park. Apparently the Human tromped on an ant’s nest: Crazy-itchy spots on the feet.

Hey, stupid! Next time remember to wear a decent pair of shoes! 

😀

Honestly! Humans aren’t very bright, are they?

It is a beautiful morning, though. High, thin overcast softens the brilliant sunlight and gives it a golden cast. Ruby as usual enamored herself of every passing human.

My gawd but people love corgis. The cuteness does it, apparently.

* * *

{sigh} We may be coming up on the last few morning walks around that park. M’hijito has been talking up the glories of prisons for the decrepit such as Orangewood, a dreadful motel that my father moved into after my mother died.

It’s not actually dreadful, objectively speaking. It’s just that..well…communal living is about as not my style as anything can get.

Truly. I despise living in close quarters with other people

  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your choice of television shows.
  • No, I do NOT want to hear your toilet flush.
  • No, I do NOT want to overhear your conversations.
  • No, I do NOT want to hear your microwave beeping.
  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your favorite radio talk show.
  • No, I do NOT want to smell whatever packaged gunk you’ve heated in your microwave.
  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your dog yap.
  • No, I do NOT want you to have to listen to my dog yap…
  • No, no, no, no, and N-O-O-O-O-O!!!!!!!

Seriously: It’s getting harder and harder to see how I’m going to avoid being locked up in an institution for the elderly and the decrepit. And that is NOT the way I want to go out.

I hated, loathed and despised living in the university dorms. Just HATED it!!!!!

That was the way I began my adulthood. And now it’s beginning to look like that’s the way I’m going to end adulthood.

There simply MUST be a better way to pass through the tag end of your life. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is!

***

On the other hand, it does have to be said that these jails offer some serious benefits for the unattached elderly.

The staff at Orangewood were wonderful to my father. You couldn’t hope to find more caring, more skilled, and more knowledgeable prison guar…uhmmm…caretakers. I surely couldn’t have given him even a decent fraction of the attention and care that he got from them.

He doted on my mother — apparently loved her more than anyone or anything in his life — so she was cared for like a queen during the last weeks and months of her life. By the time he fell ill, though, I was running late on the deadline for my dissertation and could NOT interrupt that project to hang out at Orangewood and nurse him as he passed into the Next World. And it might be recalled that he had bestowed one beating too many on me as I was growing up, a circumstance that left me with no great desire to scotch the Ph.D. and stay at his house or at some institution to babysit him.

He had already decided to move to Orangewood — the only reason he wasn’t ensconced there when my mother’s smoking habit caught up with her was that she had flat refused to move out of her beloved Sun City house. She wasn’t in her funeral urn more than a few minutes before he was arranging to get out of Sun City and into the old-folkerie.

He liked that kind of thing, though. Institutional living would’ve made me crazy then and will make me crazy now, if I’m forced into it. How exactly to avoid it, though, kinda escapes me.

Please, please make it harder to get a covid shot!

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For the LOVE of Gawd!!!!  Did you know that they’re trying to force you to go to a doctor and get a prescription just to get a damn covid shot?

Nooooo effing kidding!!!!! 

This afternoon I trotted up to the Albertson’s, where staff were just beginning to demand that you show them a doctor’s prescription to get a covid vaccination.

Yeah.

Well: my doctor is at the Mayo Clinic, which is somewhere on the far side of the planet, halfway to China. To get that holy permission, I would have to drive NINETY MINUTES between here and northeast Scottsdale and back.  EACH WAY.

Thank you so much, Big Brother!

Fortunately, I squeezed in under the wire. But if I need another one, I’ll have to traipse halfway across the Valley for the privilege.

Not like we don’t have enough trouble getting the Dumb and the Feckless to take their vaccinations, eh?

Seriously: if I weren’t a microbiology freak and I didn’t understand about immunology, I would have just shrugged my shoulders, walked away, and forgotten about it.

’Til I was enjoying a hospital stay, presumably. 

Why You Have a Kid…

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Ever ask yourself that? Why DO you have a kid? 

Welp, I’ll tellya: Its because your kid is smarter than you.

Yep. That’s it: no question. Chances are your kid started out smarter than you. But as time passed, the brat got smarter and smarter…the brat figured out more things…the brat adapted to the changing times… And by golly! The kid’s a grown man or a grown woman, and about ten times smarter than you!

Meanwhile, all that time, your own marbles have been rolling out your ears.

😀

Seriously: you would not believe how amazing Mi’jito is…because I can’t believe it myself. Not just because he knows so much more than I do (that’s to be expected, as our culture evolves over a couple of decades), but because he knows what to do with that so much more stuff. 

Computers, especially. Of course. Money: investments, real estate.

All this moonie admiration brings us around to the question of how to handle my estate...which includes everything my father left me, plus real estate, plus more money, plus…plus…plus…on and freakin’ on.

I plan to leave him my house…but DO I want to do that? A house is not 100% asset. It also has drawbacks. It has expenses. It may have loans against its equity. It may be falling down in its old age. It has taxes. And depreciation. And ever-growing costs of upkeep. Questions of neighborhood stability — or instability. Crackpot neighbors. Bat-brained city projects…augh!

Lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should look at the type of old-folkerie my father consigned himself to, after my mother died. The one he went into is actually within (lengthy) walking distance of the Funny Farm: once called Orangewood, it’s now dubbed The Terraces.

It has as its benefit some halfway decent apartments and a skilled, experienced staff who look after you. But the place is much changed today from what it was in my father’s heyday. So…I have no idea, really, what I’d be getting into.

My house is very comfortable and in a moderately safe district. Hiring someone to come in and take care of me surely wouldn’t cost any MORE than parking me in some institution. It might not cost as much. And you can be sure it wouldn’t make me anywhere near as miserable.

What I would need to do, though — something I’ve neglected! — is get back in with the church, show up down there at least once a week and preferably more, and cultivate friendships and activities.

Without a job, it must be admitted: I’ve let my social life lapse. Just now I don’t know anyone and don’t do anything. But really…how hard would it be to get back into some activities to let me rub elbows with other old bats?

Hmmm….  So, I guess starting in the next couple of weeks, I should get off my duff and go JOIN a few things.

Let’s see how that goes. If it revives “a life,” then I can basically rebuild what I had before I slid into the present lethargy.

But if it has no positive effect, then I’ll need to think a whole lot more seriously about moving into an old-folkerie, where staff can ride herd on me 24/7.

Ugh.

Another Beautiful Day in Arizona… /eyeroll/

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Ugh!!!  Hotter than the Hubs out there this morning. And wet. Not raining, but so humid the air feels thick.

Ruby the Corgi and I are just back from trudging around the park: the exercise walk of the day. It’s so sticky out there, you feel like you’re walking through cotton candy!

M’hijito has got us set up to traipse to the far side of the galaxy, there to visit the august Mayo Clinic…again. If there’s ANY way to get out of that, I’d sure like to. The peripheral neuropathy is clearing up now. Almost gone, come to think of it. So this is going to be a long, tedious, annoying wasted trip.

On the other hand, he’s got his own ailment that would benefit from a chat with those august quacks. So maybe we could just trade conferences: HE, not me, talks with the doc.

On the other other hand, he’s the one with the demanding job. And he’s the one who shouldn’t be wasting two or three hours traipsing to the far side of the galaxy, there to talk with a doctor who will tell us nothing we didn’t already know. Either way…it’s a monumental waste of time.

And I’m still doing this…WHY?

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Keeerimineee! Gerardo’s guys surfaced here. Roared around, banged around, raked around. Held out a hand: A HUNDRED BUCKS for one hour’s worth of clean-up.

Folks…I just paid them two weeks ago!

Now, admittedly: I couldn’t do that kind of work anymore, even if the temp outside were NOT 100 degrees just this moment, right at noon in mid-September. And I certainly couldn’t cut the guys back by 50%: after an untended month, the yard would look like a wilderness.

But…y’know what this sez to me?

Maybe…just maybe…we’re getting to the point where it’s time to consider moving into that high-rise apartment I secretly covet. Or, Gawd help me, into the horrible, terrifying old-folkery I most UNsecretly want to run away from….

ARRRGHHH

Okay, okay. Get a freakin’ GRIP on the marbles! 

Lookee here: a shared room at Orangewood STARTS at $3,400 a month.

Holeee shee-ut!!!

Detest room-mates as much as I do? Get a private room: $4,100 a month. AND, gawd help us, we’re told that’s below the typical market rate: average cost for assisted living here in lovely Phoenix runs $3,975. Presumably in a setting devoid of privacy.

Dear gawd.

Well…ahem… {choke!} {gag!} Look at it this way: I could get someone to come to my home and ride herd on me for a fraction of that.

W0nder Cleaning-Lady, who in addition to shoveling out my house also takes care of the bedridden and infirm in their homes, just charged me all of $80 to spend the whole damn day here shoveling out the house. And doing a pristine job, we might add.

Gerardo’s dudes just left: they passed two or three hours working like horses in gawdawful heat, cleaning and manicuring the yard: $100, for three incredibly hard-working guys.

Make a comparison like that, and you’ve gotta figure that you’ve got quite a ways to go before staying in your home to rot into old age will cost you more than locking yourself up in an old folks’ prison.

So…uhm…what do I NOT get for that much cheaper maintenance cost? Let’s try think sorta rationally about this, hm?

If that’s even possible:

Yard service. Gerardo’s crew leaves not one damn thing un-done when they spend half a morning roaring around the place. I just paid the boys $100 for heaving around in 100-degree heat and leaving the place looking like a freaking resort.

Cleaning. Baby-sitting. Yeah: the Cleaning Ladies from Heaven roar in here, work like horses for something over half the day, leave the place spotless, and…as part of the $80 package, they’d take me to the grocery store if I asked them.

So far, mercifully, I haven’t had to do that. Bridge to cross when the time comes, eh?

Hmmmm…. Well, think about that. A day of babysitting services, at $180, is as nothing compared to what it would cost me to move into the old folkerie. We’re talkin’ hundreds of dollars a month vs. thousands of dollars a month.

Then we have the chow issue. I happen to be damn picky about what I eat. No, I do not care to eat crap that comes out of cans and boxes. Or stuff that’s dished up off a steam table (most of which also comes out of cans and boxes). Nor do I care to dine when someone else tells me to come to the table, rather than when I feel like eating.

As long as I can stumble from the bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom, y’know…it strikes me that I would be FREAKIN’ NUTS to move into one of those holding pens for the elderly and the infirm.

Yeah: I surely am getting to the point where I feel a shade nervous about being here all day, with nothing but a dog and a magazine of slugs between me and the next chucklehead who shows up at the house.

But you know…for what it costs to live in an old-folks’ prison, I could hire someone to come around once a day (or more) to check on me. I could have a gadget to wear around my neck that could be used to summon help with a push of a button.

Matter of fact: This very afternoon let’s look into getting one of those things. For the nonce, though, a cell phone in a pocket will do the job, in most circumstances.

Yeah. Maybe…. Right now I have four DIFFERENT cell phones, none of which I understand how to work very well.

But;..uh…that’s easily solved, stupid! Go out and buy four or five inexpensive cell phones that are all the same! Learn how to work the damn things. Then keep one in a pocket, and one near the floor in every room in the house.

Hmmmm… That would entail more than four or five units, right? Let’s see:

* Family room (abode of the loafing chair)
* Kitchen
* Middle bathroom/loafing bathtub
* Back bathroom/shower
* Purse
* Bedroom
* Garage/laundry area
* West deck
*Back porch

That’s nine cheap phones.

Hmmm….  I already have five of those. So I’d only have to buy four more.

Then figure out how to use the damn things (they’re all different, right?) and set them down near the floor in each room. Thus, if I fall but can drag myself across the room, I should be able to grab a phone and dial 9-1-1.

And would need to buy only a few more cheapie cell phones to accomplish that.

Hmmmmm….  I wonder if any such lash-up would work?

Seems to me, given one’s senility, that your set of emergency phones would all have to be the same brand and model. Trying to learn and remember how to use a half-dozen different gadgets would be…counterproductive, at best. But hey! If you’re gonna go out and buy a bunch of phones, what’s to stop you from buying a bunch of clones?

Heh! Clone phones!

😀  Sorreee about that! 😀 

Problem is: nuisance telephone solicitors. As I was just about to hit “POST” for this squib, what do we get but

Ringy-dingy-dingy ringy-dingy-dingy

Some A$$-hole on the phone trying to peddle stuff to me. I give her an earful and hang up on her….but of course, that’s not going to stop all her nuisance colleagues from pestering me.

However, you can turn off a cell phone’s ringer. That no doubt wouldn’t head off ALL the nuisance-a-ferizing, but it surely would cut a lot of it. If all the phone is doing is vibrating, half the time you wouldn’t even notice it. All you would need an emergency call-out phone FOR would be to make emergency calls out, right?

Ugh!!!

I find the present technological age intensely frustrating. And nuisancey. And…well…I guess previous generations did, too, as these things evolved and spread across the culture.

Stop the world! I wanna get off!!!

Good Morning, America! And…

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…DUCK FOR COVER!

LOL! 8:00 in the morning, and you can hear those damn fighter jets from Luke Air Force Base all the way over here in North Central Phoenix! 

What

A

Racket!

Yes, the Sound of Death is no lullabye. That’s for sure.

People who live in Sun City bitch nonstop about the noise from Luke, right up the road from the Old Folks’ Ghetto. That actually creates SDXB’s job out there: as a semi-retired PR guy for the Air Force, he volunteers to staff the phones in the base’s public relations office. Every morning, rafts of Sun Citizens call in to bellyache about the roar from the jet plane exercises.

Hilariously, my mother used to LOVE that racket. She’d sit on her back porch, there in Sun City, and take her morning coffee to the lullaby of F-16s taking off and landing. “It’s the sound of freedom,” she would coo.

There’s a wild-eyed right-winger for you!  😀

By a weird coincidence, my house was built by the same outfit that built out Sun City. And, although it’s designed for more than two people, it bears a weird resemblance to my parents’ Sun City house:

* gray slump-block walls
* aluminum-framed sliding doors and windows
* asphalt shingle roofing
* sloping roofs over attics

Well, at least we have actual garages. Webb apparently felt a place to put a car was unnecessary for an old f*rt…presumably the new residents would be too old to drive, right?

Well. No. Out there, the houses have cheesily built lean-to carports. STEAL THIS CAR! that sign says…. 😀

Actually, what the local thieves used to do was climb on top of the car, reach up to the carport ceiling, and slide open the door to the attic. From there, they’d hop into the attic, walk across the beams to the living-room or kitchen area, saw a hole in that ceiling, and drop down into the house. From there, they’d steal you blind.

Lovely.

Here, my dowdy li’l Sun City-style house does have an actual garage with an actual garage door. 

LOL! If I’d known this subdivision was built by the same outfit that built Sun City, I wouldn’t have bought a house here. Not on a bet.

But that prejudice notwithstanding…it’s not a bad little shack. Not at all. Construction is sturdy. Design is sensible. Lots are large enough to put plenty of space between you and the neighbor. Alleyways are included, and they’re lined with 8-foot-high block walls.

Sun City has no alleys, and no backyard walls. Take your morning coffee in your backyard, and you can watch your neighbor do the same as the jets scream overhead.

They scream overhead here, too…occasionally. But at least they’re far enough away to put some distance between the natives and the racket-makers.

Ugh!! This is gonna be another beautiful day in Arizona: 28 percent humidity under clear (hot!!) skies.

In the Department of Jobs You’re Glad You Don’t Have, Mr. and Mrs Wonderaccount (right across the street) have hired a team of painters to spiff up their shack. I need those guys over here, too. But…well…luring them to my house would require me to get up off my duff. And I ain’t about to do that!