Coffee heat rising

And More Neighborhood-Cruising….

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So, going in search of Donna Freedman, proprietor of the eminent personal-finance blog Surviving and Thriving, I cruised out to where she’s visiting: her daughter’s home in a sprawling suburb north of lovely uptown Phoenix.

Wow! When we say this place is Southern-Californicating, we’re not kidding. The area looks just like Orange County did when I was passing through high school in those parts: square mile on square mile of modestly built but not unattractive tract houses, mostly indistinguishable from each other.

And yet…strangely, given my longstanding distaste for look-alike architecture….I kinda liked it. All the houses within eyeshot were nicely maintained. And since a place like that has a serious HOA, it’s highly unlikely that any house anywhere in the entire little empire is a care home for juvenile delinquents.

Now…I don’t especially wanna live someplace where I can be bossed around by a club of neighbors. On the other hand…given recent events across the street, there’s something to be said for it. One thing is for sure: a real, every-homeowner-signed-onto-it HOA would be able to limit the use of its houses by private individuals.

We do have an HOA — not one that has a de facto say in what you can and cannot do with your home. But the problem is: the Romanian Landlord has taken it over: his daughter is its president! 😀

At any rate, the tract in question is just vast. It must go on for square mile after square mile. It surrounds a golf course, and it appears to run up against Moon Valley (another upper-middle-class tract) and the north side of the North Mountains. It’s meticulously maintained — nary a weed to be seen in anyone’s yard. It’s an easy drive to the university (toooo late for this retiree! 😀 ). It’s pretty close to a big Sprouts and a decent Fry’s grocery store. It appears not to be directly under the flight path of any local airports. There is a school there, so it’s clearly not a Sun City-style old-folkerie.

Hmm. On the other hand, I could walk to the Sprouts and the Albertson’s here. Now admittedly, I wouldn’t — it’s not safe to walk up Conduit of Blight Blvd. But in theory, it would be possible.

On the other other hand…hmmm… The city’s smog backs up against the south side of Squaw Peak and the North Mountains. That would suggest that even on high-pollution days, the air in that HOA (on the mountains’ north side) would be breathable. Hmmmm…

Well. I may jump in the car, fill up the gas tank, and take a long, lazy tour of that place.

************

Or…maybe not.

LOL! The build on the houses out there makes my house look like Edinburgh Palace! Just a cruise through photos on the Internet changed my mind about that idea. REAL fast. 😀

The prices are possibly a little less than what I could get for the present palace. But the cost of moving would soak up that difference. Add the usual repairs and improvements one invariably has to make when moving into a house that’s been occupied by someone else…and egad!

It just wouldn’t be worth it to move. In terms of cost of the real estate, it would be about an even trade. But in terms of quality, it would be a large step down.

Soooo…. As for potential places to move, that leaves…what?

* Fountain Hills. Some places out there seem to be roughly comparable to my house. But I’ve seen a number that were clearly cardboard and plaster.

* Sun City. Even if I wanted to live in a ghetto for elderly white folks (I don’t), those houses also are cheaply built. If you don’t have a covered carport along the building’s west wall, any room on that side of the structure is gonna be an oven.

* Central Phoenix. A hot spot for the young and the upwardly mobile. Centrally located houses are outrageously overpriced. The pretty old “historic” buildings require a lot of repair, upgrade, and maintenance work…and it ain’t easy to find workmen who know how to deal with architecture that dates back to the late 1920s.

* North Central. Ritzy-Titzyville. You pay a premium — a large premium — for the address.

* East Central. Ditto.

* Scottsdale. Prices are out of the question and architecture ain’t much better than the junk on the west side.

* South Phoenix. Mostly slum. The areas that aren’t ghetto and slum are less desirable because of the surrounding downscale districts.

Truth to tell, I don’t see any of those places as necessarily better than where I am. The ‘Hood  is one of the choice neighborhoods in the city of Phoenix. No doubt there are fancier or safer areas in Scottsdale or to the north. But face it: every area gets its burglars, its sh!theads, and its lunatics. It doesn’t much matter where you live, as long it’s not truly a slum.

Grrrrrr…Gas!

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Good grief.

Oh, look! Alliteration! G…G…G…Gaaaahhh

😀

Yesterday (was it only yesterday?) I had to refill a couple of propane tanks for the barbecue. We have three of them, which I usually get filled at Costco, where the price is right (uhm, well…) and the service excellent. But Costco is a drive from here, and I did not feel like traipsing halfway to Flagstaff or halfway to Payson for the privilege of saving a buck or two. So, like an idiot I decided to just zip up Main Drag West to a local tire shop that dispenses propane as a sideline.

Bad move!

They charged an arm and a leg for one (count it: 1) tank of gas. And when I got home, I found there was no propane in the damn tank. WTF?

Exceptionally annoyed, I decided not to go back and argue with those idiots. After all, I couldn’t prove the empty tank I would have to schlep back there wasn’t just another tank out of my backyard.

So I loaded the damn tank into the back of the Dog Chariot and took off across the city. Driving…driving…driving…

God, but I’ve come to hate driving in this city. The Southern-California-style ambience plus the Southern-California-style moron drivers really do make driving here an unpleasant experience.

Anyway: got up to Costco, refilled the tank, and paid a fraction of what the crooks up the street charged.

Annoyed as hell: felt even more ripped off by the local crooks than I did at the outset.

Seriously: I don’t mind paying a bit more for convenience and proximity…but this was ridiculous.

So much for buying local.

You wonder how places like that stay in business at all. My guess is that location matters: This particular vendor is in darkest Sunnyslope, a dire slum. A lot of folks there probably can’t afford to pay Costco a membership fee for the privilege of spending more money inside the store. And the local joint is convenient — Costco is a drive from here, over roads best described as cut-throat.

As Phoenix gets more and more Los-Angelized, it gets less and less pleasant as a place to live. The packed roads, the traffic roar, the crooked vendors, the smog, the mile-on-mile of ticky-tacky: ugh!

If my son weren’t here, I would be sooooo gone.

At any rate, if the place just up the road provided decent customer service (no, I did not get my money back…), I would be willing, if not happy, to pay a few bucks more to forego driving halfway to Flagstaff.

{sigh}

In other less-than-sylvan vales, a friend of mine moved to Sun City and ran head-on into a b-i-i-i-g mistake. When he said, over breakfast some weeks ago, that he was going to sell his place in Mesa and go out there, I should have said to him DUDE! DON’T DO THAT!

But in the first place, I didn’t feel like it was any of my business. And in the second, a white broad telling a black dude not to move to a staunchly middle-class housing development…it just seemed tacky. And probably, from his point of view, not very credible.

Alas, my unspoken fear for him was…dead right. Last week, he e-mailed our group and reported that he forthwith sold the Sun City house and moved back to the East Valley. He slammed head-on into so much prejudice and so much open hostility…older Americans don’t even  bother to hide their hate.

Seriously: the whiteyness of Sun City was one of the major reasons my parents moved there, wayyy back in the early 1960s. Apparently things haven’t changed.

So I felt terrible for him.

Speaking of less-than-sylvan vales, Tony the Romanian Landlord put the house across the street from mine up for rent. Apparently he didn’t do real well in the Juvenile Delinquent business. The neighbors complained constantly, he vandalized their pools same as he did mine (by throwing a gallon of used motor oil over the back wall from the alley), the cops showed up frequently, the authorities noticed the house was out of code… {sigh} Pore fella.

So now he’s got a renter in there: probably several renters, since the house has four bedrooms. Dunno how much he’s getting for it, but he was asking — hang onto your hat! — THIRTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH!

Heeeeeeeee!  CAN you imagine?

I figure he expected to park a passel of unruly college students in the place, with which to annoy the neighbors. People on that side of the street (it’s across the street from my place) complained to the authorities about the late, great delinquents, and the cops who visited after the kid who was whacked in the face showed up at  my house noted that his little institution was out of code every which way from Sunday. Surely, he must have figured, a half-dozen hard-partying junior-college kids would annoy the neighbors even more than an off-the-cuff reform school. 😀

Another great idea gone astray…

Only one car is parked in the driveway (could be a couple more in the closed garage, but I don’t think so). The For Rent sign is down. So that suggests he either got a single party who could afford that preposterous rent (migrating Southern Californians, maybe?) or he allowed himself to be bargained down.

***

Cruising around town yesterday, I drove through the neighborhood where a long-gone friend grew up. Friend and now-ex wife have since moved on…and on…and on…  When last heard from, she was in Portland (Oregon) and he was in Idaho.

It’s a nice little neighborhood of modest but attractive houses. Unfortunately our brilliant City Fathers chose to drive the horrid State Route 51 freeway right through the middle of it, pretty  much destroying it as a peaceful place to live. But it’s still reasonably well kept up, the sort of place I would consider moving if it didn’t have a freeway in the backyard.

What do you suppose is the matter with city planners that they deliberately choose to trash healthy, close-in neighborhoods?

 

 

 

Smoke Alarm Hell

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Just about all the smoke alarms in the house are conkering out at the same time. It’s beep! to the left of you and beep! to the right of you and new beeps every time you turn around.

That’s not surprising. We installed these alarms when I moved in, so they’re…what? Eight or ten years old.

Replaced one. Didn’t do any good. the newer alarms are kinda junky. And getting the damn things up on the ceiling is a MAJOR hassle.l

They’re still beeping. A-A-A-A-L-L-L  N-N-I-I-I-I-G-H-T  L-O-N-G!

What a racket!

And I can’t reach them to pull them off the ceiling. Climbing up on a ladder at this age, as a scarecrow of osteoporotic bones, is NOT a good idea. And my son is too busy to come trotting down here and fart around with a bunch of fire alarms.

So I didn’t get any sleep last night, not to speak of.

Ruby and I are back from the park, but no food has been served up to the Human. Hmmm…

What I’m thinking is that when the shops open — which will be very soon — I’ll go up to the hardware store and buy a whole new bunch of smoke alarms, along with as many new expensive 9-volt batteries.

Instead of sticking them on the ceilings, I’ll put them on top of the bookcases — which in three rooms reach almost to the ceiling. And on top of the refrigerator, and atop the old TV cabinet that now serves as a linen closet in the spare bedroom.

We have one in the hallway, which I believe is relatively new. And the one here in the office is newer. The one in the kitchen…middling newish. The others — (former) TV room, family room, living room — are getting old. They could stand to be replaced, I reckon.

The house was equipped, when I bought it, with a hard-wired fire alarm in the garage. It’s still out there…and I have NO idea whether it works. Nor do I see a way to test it. So…it might be a good idea to put another of these chintzy little battery-run numbers out there. Just in case.

Y’know…the whole Home-Ownership thing is getting kinda old. I’m beginning to see why the idea of moving into Orangewood — a life-care community — appealed to my father. He must have been getting real tired of doing maintenance and repairs on that house in Sun City.

Well, I don’t wanna consign myself to a prison for old folks. BUT…this city has some high-rise apartments that are fairly swell. I’m thinking it might be good to move to one of those.

My son opposes that scheme. I suspect that’s because he wants this house. And I would have to sell it to get myself into a fancy condominium.

On the other hand, when I croak over — which shouldn’t be that much longer — he’ll inherit enough to buy three of these houses.

Hmmmm….  Maybe what I should do is just give this house to him and spend half my savings to move into a high-rise.

Doesn’t sound wise, does it.

Nope. Not wise.

There’s gotta be a way….

Wow! What a ZOO!!!!

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LOL! Just back from the neighborhood park, along about 6.p.m. What a MOB over there!

So crowded was it, I was thinking it was a weekend. (When you don’t have to go to work, you never know what day it is…) But no! It’s a Tuesday afternoon!

You never saw so many people in your life! I counted EIGHTY cars parallel-parked along the north side. That’s just the street parking…along just one of the three bordering streets. Doesn’t count the parking lot in the middle of the park.

It’s kinda fun, because there are lots of kids, some of them playing baseball and soccer and volleyball, many just running around. But also there are a lot of dogs — some of them off-lead. And so I have to keep wrestling Ruby to evade fights.

The park is the crown jewel of our neighborhood. There’s only one other neighborhood in the city limits that has a park even faintly like it. Another one is out in Scottsdale, a long way from here. And there’s one on the west side, where the neighborhood around it is a little sketchier. So our park attracts folks from miles around.

At any rate, it was just crazy over there. Trying to keep Ruby from engaging in dog fights was…well…trying. Usually I do avoid the park on the weekends, because of the crowds. But…but…this isn’t a weekend day!!!!!!! It’s Tuesday.

So somehow I’ll have to figure out a way to avoid that mess.

Ruby dearly loves the park, because it has…WOW!! Grass! My yard, like most in these parts, is desert-landscaped. The grass must seem like some sort of miracle carpeting to her. But after this, we’ll have to go over there in the mornings or early afternoons, when the kiddies are in school.

M’jihito just called, having knocked off work along about 6:30 or so.

I do not think I would like to have to work from home — not to have any choice in the matter. That’s now the case with M’jihito: his employer, a large insurance company, shut down their offices, having discovered — thanks to the plague — that their employees can get their work down at home just fine, at no cost to the company.

When I was at the Great Desert University, I did manage to get them to let me put some (at first) and then (later) most of my courses online. That, I liked. But…it was my choice. I was not informed that I had to completely revamp my courses and my work habits so as to work remotely at all times.

Nor was I managing any underlings, unless you regard students as sort of like lower-level employees. He has to ride herd on a bunch of insurance agents, all of whom now are working out of their homes, too. That strikes me as not the best of all possible worlds.

***

And now it’s after dark. Quiet (not always the case in these parts). The dawg is zonkered out on the bed. It’s heading toward 10 p.m., so I reckon I’m gonna call it a day, too.

And so, awayyy!

 

So there!!!

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LOL! The latest set of exterior decorations is now mounted on the front gates and doors.

😀

Gawdlmighty, i’m sooooo obnxious, even I think it’s funny!

Probably just like your neighborhood, the Funny Farm’s ‘hood is overrun with nuisance door-to-door solicitors. Some of these folks are peddling junk; others are trying to get signatures on petitions. Sooooo…it’s ringy-dingy-bingy-bong at the damn front door, practically every day. Dawn to dusk.

A year or so ago, I got the bright idea of putting up signs saying, in effect, “Please don’t ring the doorbell. No Solicitation.”

As you know, these normally have little effect on the legions of nuisances. Sooo…I decided to make the message a little stronger.

On side gate to the front patio:

PLEASE NO SOLICITING!

We’re not interested in what you’re selling.
We’re not interested in your political campaign.
We have already signed your petition, or decided not to.
DO NOT PESTER BY JANGLING THE DOORBELL, PLEASE!

AMAZON * UPS
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

On the front gate to the same patio and on the same side gate to that patio:

AMAZON:
Please leave packages inside the patio, next to the front door.
Welcome to Porch Pirate Heaven!

 

On the security screen at the front door:

NO SOLICITING
****
NO PETITIONS
****
Please!!!!!!!!!

Interestingly, this barrage of messages works!

LOL! As you may gather, these people are almost as pesky as phone solicitors. So a sign that says PRIVATE does exactly no good. And about 10% of them ignore “NO SOLICITING” SIGNS. But apparently beating the sleazes about the head and shoulders with your message gets through to most of them.

Now. If you could only do that with the phone….

Heh… Our neighborhood techno-guru, Will, set up a video system at his front door. So…he can and does capture the antics that happen in front of his house, when Amazon and UPS trucks turn up with thieves’ cars in tow. There’s one woman, in particular, who follows the Amazon truck around in her car, waits till the delivery dude drives off, jumps out of her car and grabs the delivered packages, runs back to her car, tosses them into the back seat, and takes off down the road after the Amazon guy.

Is Amazon Guy aware of this? Could they be in cahoots?

Hm.

As likely as not, I’d say. You’d think after awhile he’d notice he’s being followed. But…it’s gotta be a mind-numbing job. Maybe, just maybe he really doesn’t notice.

Anything’s possible. I guess.

At any rate, for the nonce the “no soliciting, no petitions” message is working. Now…if only I could make that work on the phone!

Struggling Along…

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Wow! When they say the Land of Old Age ain’t for kids, they aren’t kidding! What a horror show the past few weeks have been.

And…no end seems to be in sight, except for the obvious one.

It’s not like gettin’ old isn’t bad enough in itself: you’re sick all the time, under siege from doctors who want to inflict treatments that are probably pointless, and the ordinary tasks of daily life come to feel like more than you can cope with.

And, speaking of “under siege,” you literally are under siege from every scam artist on the planet.

Apparently they figure that as your faculties fade, so does your skill at dodging crooks. And…they’re probably right. These lists appear to be pretty readily available to anyone who’s willing to pay a few bucks for them. There’s this, for example: for $325 cash on the barrelhead, any scammer on the planet can get access to phone numbers from some 52 million old folks. Conveniently organized by categories such as “pet owners,” “religion,” “gender,” “auto owners,” “new movers” — on and on and on — these things hand you over to the hustlers. No wonder the phone jangles every day!

I’ve had to block numbers from entire area codes. This is fine (sorta) when the area codes are in Los Angeles and waypoints, where I don’t know anyone and don’t do business. But the ba*tards spoof local area codes, trying to trick you into thinking their noxious advertising and scamming calls are from neighbors or local businesses. The Phoenix area, which prides itself in aping LA’s endless sprawl, has three area codes. Since I no longer work in the East Valley nor do I still have much of a social life, I’ve blocked two of them.

This prevents people in the East Valley and the West Valley from calling me. Only problem: my dermatologist’s office is on the west side and the Mayo is on the east side. Neither of these worthy outfits can reach me on the phone.

Same is true for certain friends who use only cell phones. One of my dearest friends has canceled her land line and uses only a cell phone…which has a banned area code. To get in touch, she has to email me.

I did try the strategy of BLASTING phone solicitors with the loudest, most eardrum-shattering noise you can come up with. Rather than carry an airhorn around the house all the time, I’ve found that SCREAMING into the phone as loud as you can, at the top of your voice, seems to get you on the pests’ do-not-call lists.

You shriek:

G-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A!!!!!!!!!!

It does seem to work, at least to a degree. In the weeks since I’ve started this li’l strategy, the nuisance calls have dropped from eight or ten a day — starting as dawn cracks! — to maybe one or two.

And speaking of BLASTING….

M’jito is dragging me to the Mayo next Monday, pretty much over my dead body, to be subjected to an MRI of my brain.

This entails sticking you inside a metal tube and BLASTING EXTREMELY LOUD NOISE into your ears. It sounds absolutely unholy. Apparently some people completely freak out from this “exam,” a procedure for which the term “torture” sounds a lot more appropriate.

And it also seems to me to be utterly unnecessary. Why subject a person to a test to prove…what? That you can barely remember your name, after you’ve told the dear doctors repeatedly that you can barely remember your name?

Well. You and I have a fair idea of why. It’s spelled $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$….

I do not want to be subjected to this. But he has threatened to have me declared incompetent if I refuse to submit.

Whether he could actually get away with this is unknown to me. But what IS known is that if he tries it, he will end our relationship forever and aye.

Since I don’t relish being permanently alienated from him, I’m going along with the torture scheme. But if I’m right and nothing is wrong with my brain (!!!!!), this will be the LAST time I go along to get along when someone demands that I subject myself to anything I don’t want to be subjected to.

Airplanes are roaring away outside: r-r-r-r-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-m-b-le …hour after hour of it. Apparently it’s coming from Sky Harbor: they must have changed the morning flight patterns. What a racket!

My mother actually used to enjoy the sound of fighter jets practicing take-offs and landings at Luke Air Force Base. The locals in Sun City got blasted with that gawdawful racket every morning. She would sit on the back porch, serenaded as she had her first coffee of the day. “The sound of freedom,” she called it.

Uh huh. And coming from Sky Harbor, what we call it is “the sound of cash.”

It pretty much obviates the scheme to move to Fountain Hills. Planes flying into Sky Harbor at dinner time and out of Sky Harbor at breakfast time BLAST YOU OUT OF YOUR SEAT if you dare to sit on the back porch to enjoy your coffee. And the houses out there are built so flimsily, that they barely block the noise even if you stay inside with all the doors and windows shut.

***********

And…speaking phones ringing at the crack of dawn: RINGY DINGY DINGY!

Pick up the phone, ready to blast the solicitor.

Nope: it’s the plumber. He’s sending his son over to dig up and repair the back yard’s leaking irrigation system.

Goodie. Nothing like a little chaos — preferably expensive chaos — to make your day.