Coffee heat rising

Happy Holiday…Now Stop the Effin’ World!

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😀  Honest to GAWD!

WHY??? Why is it that EVERYTHING I WANT OR NEED TO DO has gotta be done the hard way?

This, as you may instantly have surmised, is one of those days.

You know: the kind of day when everything you touch, everything you want to do, everything you have to do goes ker–SPRROOOOIIIINGGGGGGGG!

Look crosswise at it, and it flies apart.

Immediate case in point: The Mayo has assigned me to some new doc I never heard of. Last I talked to them, I got the impression she’s at the hospital up the freeway off 56th Street. That’s a long way away, but nowhere near as far as the one in Scottsdale, which is halfway to freakin’ Payson.

So I go to look this woman up…hmmm…  No luck there. Call the hospital to confirm my suspicion: NO ANSWER!  This is a freakin’ holiday!

Yeah. Labor Day.

Like those of us who don’t work know it’s another blank day on the calendar, hm? And NO ONE is answering the phones over there.

Got that?

A huge institution with a hospital and two large office buildings and an army of doctors and staff plus a nationwide telephone network, and not one person is fielding phone calls.

IS there a question of whether we live in a Third-World country? If so, whence any such question?

***** 6:09 p.m. *****

Wow!

The day went straight downhill from there.  And wouldncha know: it’s Labor Day, so there’s no help any way you look!

Okay, so the Labor Day phenomenon explains why NO ONE is answering the phones at the Mayo. Like…they can’t afford to pay one minimum-wage receptionist overtime for ONE DAY to answer the effing phones?

Y’know…when you don’t work, there are no holidays. Every day is a holiday.

JAYZUZ!

What a day from Hell!!!!!

Out in the backyard, I’m futzing around the pool. And…and…wondering why the cascades of cat’s-claw vines that cover the back wall and pile up high enough to keep passers-by from peering into the pool areas are all dried up and dying.

Yes. The vines appear to be withering away.

So more futzing..futz…futz…futz…a-a-a-n-d WHOA!!!!!!!

What should I find, while batting around in the shrubbery, but that the soaker hose that I ran along the base of that wall in behind the shrubs, the hose that’s been on a timer for all these years, has been CUT!

Say what???

Climb around climb around climb around the poking, stickery shrubs…and…and…yeah.

That hose has been SLICED IN TWO!

What…

The…

FVCK!!!!!

No wonder the plants have been withering away.

They’re pretty xeric shrubs. So they’re still marginally alive, despite not having any city water for God only knows how long. They’re as close as they can get to dead without being dust-to-dust…but I think they’ll come back if they’re liberally watered.

But…ohhhhhh the fishiness of it.

In the first place, that hose is way back against the wall underneath the thick plants. The only way you could get at it to slice it in half — and that’s what we’re looking at here: a clean slice, like a knife cut — would be either to climb under the plants or to pull it out. From the look of it, the perp apparently climbed under or through the shrubbery to get at it.

So…I think Gerardo may just have gotten fired. We shall see…but it’s going to depend on whether I can find another yard guy, and if so, what kinda yard guy.

Speaking of events in the Back Yard, I took the New Harvey up to Leslie’s to get whatever is wrong with it fixed.

The guy told me it was on the warranty — that the work would be free.

Yesterday when I got home from the store, I realized…hey, waitaminit here…they charged me 45 bucks!

This afternoon, drive back up there, march up to the door, and…yeah. They’re closed.

Of course. It’s Labor Day.

So tomorrow I’ve got to lay siege to those clowns. But I won’t have time to do that because I have to trudge up to the Mayo to see a new MayoDoc, and that will soak up the better part of the day.

JUST what I wanna do with another day of my goddamn time!!

Ohhhh well. On the way back from the doc’s I can stop off at Leslie’s and do battle with them. Yay. What fun.

Meanwhile, I can’t get into my goddamn checking account…AGAIN. This, I discover in the process of trying to find out whether there’s enough cash in there to cover a $2280 (!!!!!) AMEX bill. So that means that in addition to suffering through a miserable doctor’s appointment with a new doc to whom I have to try to explain EVERYTHING all over again without sounding like a raving lunatic, I’m going to have to do battle with the credit union.

NONE of the secret codes they’ve given me will get me into my account online. So that means I have to traipse all the way over there after I get away from the Mayo and ask them how much is in my checking account. This will require me to drive halfway across the west side, adding another 50 minutes to tomorrow’s traipsing time.

ohhhhh gooodie!

 

Who Was Joe Kelly? Can memories be inherited?

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When I was a little kid, I lived about half my life in a fantasy world. Of course, I had to go to school, and so that dragged me out of Never-Never Land for seven  hours a day, maybe nine months a year. But that notwithstanding, about half to three-quarters of my waking hours were spent daydreaming and fantasizing. And no, I didn’t pay a whit of attention in school.

Because…you understand (this is not an exaggeration)…I already knew all that. What I didn’t know, I learned by reading the textbook and doing the homework. All the teachers did, academically, was rehash the information in the texts. Otherwise their job was to babysit, which they did honorably enough. Well. Except for their failure to protect the Weird Little Girl from being tormented by all the other little darlings in the classrooms.

**

Eventually I grew up and escaped from the mania of loneliness. This happened when we came back to the States. The kids in my new school in San Francisco had no idea I was the Odd Brat Out. They accepted me and were nice to me and made friends with me and never once tormented me with teasing and mocking and ostracizing.

The fantasy worlds in which I lived faded away. The jungle where I was a kind of female Mowgli, surrounded by solicitous large cats and a community of wolves: that went away. The alien worlds I explored in my spaceship: gone. The ancient Egyptian society where I lived as a young slave girl: buried under the pyramids.

Only one of the fantasy worlds persisted.

It was the story of Joe Kelly, an underage criminal who was busted for some vile crime, convicted, and — at the age of about 16 — sent off to San Quentin.

Quite an elaborate tale grew up around Joe, richly populated with characters ranging from prison guards to fellow convicts to the warden and the prison’s pastor. Joe was richly imagined.

I could tell you what he looked like. What he did. What he thought. How he reacted to people around him…on and on. And the world — the story — that grew up around him was also vividly, richly imagined. It was a persistent story, one that did not go away after we got back to America.

And I could tell you about Mac, the big, tough prison guard who took Joe under his wing and did his best to reform the kid.

All very nice…but…

but…

Now, fly through time some six or eight years later. I’ve grown up and gone off to college. My parents have retired to Sun City. My father, not having anticipated a major recession, has gone back to sea to try to rescue his crashed retirement investments.

It’s a holiday break, so I’m home with my mother. And somehow — I don’t recall how — the subject of my father’s upbringing and his parents arises.

He was a change-of-life baby. His father decidedly did not want another kid to raise — so my mother’s story goes — and he asked his pregnant wife to abort the pregnancy.

She refused to do so.

Distraught, he ran off into the boondocks. Some months later he was found dead by the side of a rural Texas road. His death was deemed a suicide by the local hayseed sheriff.

Hm.

In the course of relating this story, she also tells me that at one point in his life he had been a prison guard.

Hm!

Now you no doubt know, as I do, how brutal Southern prisons were back in the Day. If he had been a guard in one of those august institutions, he would have made a lot of enemies. And what do you suppose would have happened if one of those fellas had come across him out in the Texas boondocks?

Yeah. Would’ve been easy to shoot him in the head, put the gun in or near his hand, let his horse loose, and take off into the sunset.

…hmh…

Obviously, he could have shot himself in the head. Hard to know, all these years after the fact. Hard to know what some small-town Texas sheriff could have known or figured out.

But the question is…where did the “Joe Kelly” fantasy narrative come from? Why would a little girl develop a story about life in a state prison? A men’s state prison…

Is it possible — even remotely possible — that my grandfather’s memories of his time as a prison guard could have been genetically handed down through my father?

***

O’course, it’s an unanswerable question. But it’s interesting. Intriguing.

Water! Falling Out of the Sky!

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Who’d’ve thunk it? Last night we got fierce thunderstorms rolling through the Valley. And…rain! This wet stuff that fell right out of the sky onto the ground. Weird…

Seriously: it was one of the fiercest little freshets I’ve seen in awhile. Apparently it caused a fair amount of damage and — horrors!! — shut down a football game. Lightning apparently hit a house not far from here…looks like a condo development where I considered buying a place. This story claims it’s a house, but reportage in the local media leaves a lot to be desired. Like…you know…accuracy?

Three in the morning just now: the usual hour for the Little Old Lady Wake-up Call.

Went out to check the pool, figuring to find the Mess from Hell. But no! It was nowhere like a disaster area. This, thanks to the various workmen who inhabit the yard:

  • Gerardo’s crew beat back the palm tree mess just a week or so ago.
  • Pool Dude, who works some kinda miracle with the Hole in the Ground into Which to Pour Money, has kept the pool amazingly clean over the past some weeks. It was still OK as of this wee hour…just some leaves floating on the surface, which I scooped out easily with a net.
  • It’s too dark to see the roof, but no leaks made themselves evident…so I assume (hope!!) it’s OK. Probably was a real good thing that I forked over a few fistfuls of cash to have that thing worked on.

Hmmm…. Can’t see much in the dark, so further inspection of the Funny Farm will have to wait until tomorrow. I think Garage Repair Dude is supposed to show up tomorrow to fix the garage door. Hope so. Checking to see whether that thing is still closed — it could have blown open in the wind, since there’s a side door to the garage that would have invited some mighty gusts in.

…Nope! The side door slammed shut, apparently pretty early on. Don’t see a lot of mess on the floor out there. Can’t bring myself to go out on the west side and inspect that part of the yard…wouldn’t be able to see a lot in the dark, anyway. Plus there would be nothing I could do about it at this hour, anyway.

LOL! And — natcherly — now that I’m ready to crawl back under the covers, the Dawg wants to get up. Never fails!

😀

North Central: Neighborhood from Hell

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An entertaining discussion appeared this morning in the neighborhood Facebook page:
(I give up trying to format this thing! Sorry for the glitches…Facebook content just does NOT carry over into blog format with any consistency. Gaaaaah!)

Fernando M.
Top contributor
What’s going on with all of the cops and chopper?
Victoria H.
Top contributor
F’r cryin’ out loud. Fountain Hills looks better and better
Lily F.
Top Contributer
Listening in on the police scanner and it seems it was a break in/home invasion of some sort and they were trying to locate the suspect. He’s in custody now and we can all rest tonight ◡
Fernando M:

Top contributor They got him.

Beth M:
Fernando M. any details where they nabbed him?

Fernando M:
Beth M: at the third house in on 15th Ave and Harmont.

Fernando M.
Which house?!? We are on Harmont and 15th Drive!

Andrea R. A.:
Squad was parked at 17dr/Griswald. Squad car just flew past my house, heli is low. Squad car just down the street near neighbors house

Michelle B-I:
Andrea R.A. are they at the dead end near my moms?

Andrea R A
Michelle B-I yes they were now at Royal Palm

Aimey O B:
Andrea R. A.  there was one parked down here at 16th & Griswold also, for abiut 1/2 hr. Then we heard he was in the yard under a tree on royal palms, ‘3rd house west of 16dr red roof’ that’s when the helicopter left so assuming that’s where they apprehended him.

Andrea R.A:
Aimey Odom Bussing thanks for the update

Laura Rodriguez:
Thank you all for the updates! Woke up to the helicopters and knew I could count on our neighbors looking out for the neighborhood. Great to have neighbors with police scanners. Might need to get one.

Emily G.:
Laura R.  there’s an app, Scanner Radio

Fernando M:
They have a dog out now

Fernando M:
I’m listening to the police scanner and they are trying to surround someone. Preparing for “him” to jump the wall

Noël D:
Fernando M: did you hear them say it was from a break in/home invasion? I read from somewhere else it was someone running from a traffic stop

Emily W:
Top contributor
I hope everyone is ok. I’m glad they caught the person but it sounds like they did some harm first.

Emily W:
Top contributor
There’s a cop on the corner of 15th ave and royal palm. Not sure what’s going on though

Sonya V.
Been going on a VERY long time flying low, spotlights from helicopter in our yard, voices from helicopter but can’t understand what they are saying. 16th ave and las palmaritas. Any news yet on what’s going on?

Eric T:
I guess no sleep tonight going to be a long day tomorrow

Fernando M:
Royal palm and harmony alley

Fernando M:
I’m someone’s yard jumping to the alley

Fernando M:
He is in the church parking lot

Jessica L. G.:
Heard two loud bangs that woke us up about 30min ago, cops have surrounded the park since, husband saw someone across the street picking up something off the sidewalk on the park side, then ran north on 15th ave just before cops got here

Fernando M:
They just came over the speaker and said you are surrounded!

Aimey O.B.:
I was sitting at the kitchen table working (everyone else was asleep) & all of a sudden our entire backyard was lit up like daylight!! (16th dr & griswold) For several seconds! Freaked me out!! I woke up my fiancé & we watched as cops searched the alley rt behind our house w k-9 & followed them on the scanner!! Wont be falling off to sleep anytime soon after all that!!

Beth M:
I don’t know, I heard voices that sounded like it was from the copter and my backyard keeps getting lit up.

Gail G.O.:
Doesn’t sound like they had them surrounded.

Patti C:
There’s a police car on 17th drive and Harmont. Copter had been circling over my house with lights. I assumed it was something with the apartments or light rail but must be more than that

Andre W:
Top contributor
That glass of wine, didn’t realize anything strange was happening last night.

Jeanne D:
Wow that’s crazy

Ahhh yes. Business as usual here in our beautiful home…

Every time I think about moving to Fountain Hills (or the South of France), I’m reminded of the cop who chatted with me after the Great Home Invasion episode. I remarked to him that maybe I should move to Scottsdale or some such. He said — these are his words, indeed — “Don’t do that! We go to these things all over the Valley. It doesn’t matter where you live. This stuff happens all the time.”

And yea verily, even in stodgy, muffled Sun City, a year or two ago a couple of thugs invaded a home out there. They herded the homeowner’s male house guest into a bedroom and shot him in the head.

Unlikely they could have known the guy. The house guests would have been from out of town. He probably mouthed off to them.

What a place!

Twenty-First Century as Gigantic Rip-off

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Those of us who are decrepit enough to remember life in the late 1900s can surely attest that there were plenty of ripoffs on the float, back then in the “good” ole days. But jeez…

Every which way from Sunday, here’s somebody trying to siphon your money out of your wallet. I swear ta gawd!

Today I had to register the Dog Chariot. Every year or two (depending on how much you’re willing to pay at any one time), you have to trot your car into a state facility to get an emissions test, for which you have to pay about 20 bucks.

Once you pay, they give you a sheet of paper that you have to use to re-register your car. This year: the tab is $227 and change. In other words, it’s going to cost almost $250 to register a nine-year-old car. For one year.

I find this passing infuriating. Yes, I know: we need to pay to maintain the roads and hire highway patrolmen. But we already pay an exorbitant state income tax. And stiff sales taxes on everything that passes a cash register.

But evidently there’s nothing one can do about it.

For a change, though, this year’s ritual was not the unpleasant production of the past. Used to be, you’d drive in and find a dozen lanes, any one of them with ten or fifteen cars ahead of you. So you get in line and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you…

…and you don’t have much choice of which line you get into. And this is August. The hottest month of the year in Arizona. (Understand: it was 112 here today…and that was actually a fairly balmy day.)

To my surprise, this time there were not very many cars and trucks ahead of me.

A worker motioned me to a line that had only one vehicle, and it was already inside the drive-thru.

So, incredibly, I didn’t have to wait long at all — only a few minutes.

Get in there…and usually they make you get out of the car and wait inside an uncomfortable booth: hot, stuffy, and claustrophobic.

This year, though, they seem to have done away with those. He didn’t even make me get out of the car!

And…it only took him a few minutes to do the job — not a quarter-hour or more. Forthwith he came back, handed me the paperwork, and said I was good to go!

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! No hassles??????

Well.

Then you look at the paperwork.

The fee to register that nine-year-old vehicle is $227.77.

Can you imagine?

Two hundred and thirty bucks to drive a car I should have traded in four years ago?

Dayum. What do you suppose it costs to register a brand-new Venza? If they even still make them….

I don’t drive that car much. Now that I don’t have to schlep to jobs in Tempe or in Glendale, I rarely have any reason to bucket around the roads. Yeah: I drive to the grocery store, the Costco, and the occasional doctor’s or veterinarian’s office, but that’s about it.

If we had decent public transit here, I probably wouldn’t even own a car.

But we don’t, so I do.

There’s good reason not to feel safe on the city’s buses and trains. Mainly, the transients ride them for free (partly because on the train, no one is taking tickets, and partly because various organizations hand out free bus passes. And o’course, because they’re air-conditioned). Most of those folks are harmless. But some are…not. Many are ex-convicts. Most are drug users. Some are out of their heads with mental illness or the effects of street drugs. So…no. They’re not strangers you want to spend a lot of time with, in elbow-to-elbow seating. Or standing.

And that’s specifically why I don’t ride lovely Phoenix’s buses and vaunted trains.

So here we are in a city — and a state — where public transit is neither very practical nor very pleasant, and those of us who have to drive (that includes almost everyone) gets gouged for the privilege of putting our cars on the road. Don’t forget: this is not the only tax we pay. Gasoline is taxed liberally. Most retail products are taxed at the checkout counter (and points along the way thereto…). Power is taxed. Water is taxed. On and on it goes.

Not that one doesn’t want to support government and public services. But maybe the funds should be used intelligently?

Lordie! One extreme idea after another!

 

Report from the Hubs of Hades

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It’s 6:30 at night.

Storm clouds are blowing in as we scribble.

And the back-porch thermometer says it’s 105 in the shade.

Here in the coolest room in the house, loafing in the direct breeze from an air-conditioner vent, the thermometer says we have 80 degrees.

Wunderground puts the outside temp at 109, with a crackling 15% humidity.

Lovely Arizona. Why do people choose to live here?

***

Hm… Apparently I was too fried to finish this y’day.

It’s 3:30 in the morning — the usual annoying wake-up call for the superannuated. Don’t get old, kids! It’s one irritant after another… 😮

At any rate: 3:30 a.m. and we’re down to a chilly 110, and partly cloudy. Sez Wunderground, anyway. Tomorrow — well, today actually, it being the wee hours as we scribble — we’re supposed to have a high of 116, “mostly sunny.” Ten percent chance of rain both days.

It’s that 10% that’s a killer: it means humidity will be relatively high. Truth to tell, 110 on a dry day is tolerable. But add a “chance of rain” — or even just a little humidity — and you get truly miserable heat.

August is always a miserable month, though. It being the 29th, we shouldn’t have more than another two weeks or so of this stuff. Mid-September will be hot, but not unholy hot.

**

Welp. It’s almost 4 in the morning. Just won another Outspell game (you see how bored one gets in one’s dotage…). I’m going back to bed.

I hope…