Coffee heat rising

Aging in Place…by Damn!

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Why in heaven’s name did I never think of this?  It’s so obvious!

Hire someone to come to the house and provide the services you’d get in an old-folkerie.

  • What would be the advantages?
  • What would be the disadvantages?
  • What would be the effect on M’hito?
  • What be the effect on me?

Y’know, my father checked himself into one of the first and most prominent “life-care communities” in Arizona. (Don’tcha just LOVE that marketing euphemism?) The place was called Orangewood…and it was within walking distance of my house in North Central Phoenix.

My mother had refused to go, so he was stuck in their house in Sun City until she croaked over — which she did promptly enough, thanks to her suicidal tobacco habit.

You need to know that he had gone to sea all his adult life, living on naval vessels and commercial tankers. So he was deeply accustomed to living in an institutional environment.

  • He didn’t mind close quarters.
  • He didn’t mind having to behave like he was in jail.
  • He didn’t mind bad food.
  • He didn’t mind other people telling him what to do and when to do it.

Personally, I loathe that lifestyle. Hated living in the dormitory.  And I would — truly — take a flying leap off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon if I were forced to move into one of those nursing-home knock-offs.

Turns out that some alternatives do exist, even though they’re not obvious.

Bear in mind: moving into one of those awful “life-care communities” will take ALL of your life savings.

So…uhmmmm…. If you decline any such move, will you not then still have your sticky little hands on said life savings?

And if that’s the case, couldn’t YOU decide how said L.S.’s will be spent, on whom, and when?

  • Why could you not sic your financial representative on the agencies and organizations you’d need to hire? Have him ride herd on them, see that they’re paid, that they do the job, and they don’t cheat you.
  • Helle’s belles, hire a second financial rep — or a lawyer — to ride herd on the first one.
  • It would be complicated as Hell and you’d need to have honest, reliable representatives…but…it could be done. Couldn’t it?

See the gist of what I’m saying here? You could hire your own people to provide the services you get from a “life-care community.”

You’d need more than one person. Taking care of an ailing oldster is no easy task…and it is, as a practical matter, a 24-hour job. You’d probably need at least three people, to cover three eight-hour shifts.

Hiring three people to hang around and watch over you 24 hours a day would, indeed, cost an arm and a leg and then some. But remember: when you move into one of those life-care outfits, they take everything you have.

To move to Orangewood, my father had to fork over his entire life savings, including the funds he got from the sale of his paid-off house. And though he wasn’t John D. Rockefeller, as an inveterate cheapskate he had piled up quite a mound of cash to see him and my mother through their dotage.

Okay. So: what are we looking at, if instead we hire private staff to babysit us in our own dotage?

  • What would be the advantages?

* They would be my employees, not beholden to some company acting as a holding pen to store my body while we wait for me to die.

* Therefore, I could hire and fire at will. If I were dissatisfied, I could find someone else to come in.

  • What would be the disadvantages?

* I or my son would have to ride herd on them.

* This would mean we not only would have to be sure they were paid fairly and on time, but also that income-tax documents were filed and that the employees understood their responsibilities for paying their taxes.

* Any dishonesty or shiftiness on their part could have painful consequences for us.

* Any loss of marbles on my part could also have painful consequences, for everyone involved.

* And of course, having someone in your face every day would be, for a loner like me, quite the little adjustment…

  • What would be the effect on M’jito?

* It would foist an untoward responsibility on him, one that could be quite a burden.

* If tax reports were incorrectly filed through no fault of his or mine, the government could harass us.

* It would free up large amounts of time for him, during which he would not have to ride herd on me.

  • What would be the effect on me?

* No doubt I would be less than perfectly pleased to have someone underfoot all the time — at least 8 hours a day, and maybe more than that.

* On the other hand, if it would keep me out of an old-folkerie, no doubt I could somehow make myself adjust…

In some ways, it’s a toss-up, isn’t it….

Uh oh… Not to say GOOD GRIEF!

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Just experienced one of those blinding insights... You know, when you’re loafing around and all of a sudden something SOOO FUKKIN OBVIOUS dawns on you and you say to your idiot self what the HELL was the matter with me that I didn’t think of this????

Yeah. What HAS been the MATTER with me?

***

Welp…superficially the matter has been some kind of ailment that causes crazy-making peripheral neuropathy — tingling and stinging in the hands, feet, and lips — and just about constant ear-whistling. Either of these phenomena alone is enough to drive you off the edge of a cliff. Together, they pretty much guarantee suicidal ideation.

Nothing, but NOTHING that I’ve tried has helped. This has gone on for weeks, eliding into months.

Welp…it suddenly strikes me: nothing that I’ve tried addresses one major, very obvious potential cause.

Hey: what causes your ears to whistle and buzz when you’ve got the flu? When your allergies are flaring?

Yeah: sinus and ear congestion!

DUH!

My nose doesn’t feel stuffy (or rather, no more stuffy than usual: this IS Arizona, the land where you go to find out what your allergies are). But my ears do. They click when I open my mouth wide, like they do when you have a bad head cold.

In Arizona, you get sinus and ear congestion from the ambient allergens. And it develops that peripheral neuropathy can also result from allergies.

At the risk of repeating myself: DUH!

***

Ya don’t suppose…????

Holy sh!t…why didn’t I think of this before? It’s been going on for weeks, months…and never once have I thought “why are my ears ringing all the time? like when i have a bad cold??? sorta like when i have an allergic attack?”

***

Okay. I just dropped a Benadryl.

This should be entertaining: let’s see what happens. Give it an hour or two to kick in, if it’s gonna kick in.

Benadryl wires me to the teeth (which is why I don’t like to take it). But it doesn’t knock me into the middle of next week, the way other allergy meds do…so it shouldn’t be unsafe for me to drive the car or climb into the bathtub.

That’s the reason I don’t like to take the usual allergy meds: they put me into a damn coma. I need to be able to drive, and I need to be able to function around the house.

Hmmm…it’s 1 p.m. now. I’d guess it’ll take an hour or two for the thing to kick in, if it’s going to. Minimum. Actually, it’s been going on for so long, it may take a day or two for the allergy med to make a difference. Hmmm….

This will be innaresting.

I hope.

 

Cutest thing…

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….i’ve ever seen!

Seriously (okay, not very)…this afternoon THE cutest young fella came up to me in the Safeway. A nifty-looking black gent, simply too, too handsome. He wanted to know which aftershave was most likely to appeal to his lady friend.

😀

How adorable can you get, eh?

{heh!} Yep: afraid i failed to explain to him that it was his incredible cuteness that would appeal… 😀 At random, recommended one or the ‘tother.

Let’s hope she appreciates him! <3

 

Someday in My LIfetime…?

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Waiting…and waiting…and waiting…and waiting…for the exterminator guy to show up.  Nice long rivers of bug shit are streaming down the west wall from the attic. That would be, as we know, TERMITES.

So I need to get somebody to get up in the attic, spray nauseating toxins around up there. Then hire a carpenter to come repair the (possibly considerable!) damage.

Termites — the wood-eating variety — are a relatively recent import here, brought into the Valley by the whitey immigrants from around the country and around the world. I can recall when they first showed up in the toney Arcadia District, over on the east side of town.

Now they’re all over the city: every part of town has them.

Hope I’m not confronted with a lot of expensive repair work. This is the second time I’ve had to get an exterminator in here to beat them back.

Speaking of attics, a crew of guys is on the roof across the street, strolling around up there as though they were taking a Sunday walk. Looks like they’re totally reroofing the house.

Ohhhh goodie. That’s all I need: to have to get my house re-roofed!

Wonder if the homeowner’s insurance will cover it? Heh…we’ll soon find out.

My son really wants this house. If I’m to pass it along to him, somehow I’ve gotta get the bugs out, repair the damage, and keep the critters out.

LOL!!!  In the Washington Post Outspell game I’m killing time with just now, two words came up, linked:

CHEWER
and
ROOF

What are they tryin’ to say to us?

😀

Hotter than a Swamp in the Hubs of Hades….

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Another cozy warm afternoon in lovely Arizona.

All I wanted to do out there in the freakin’ backyard was pull the garden hose around to get water on the trees (whose automatic watering system has failed) and on the weed in the middle of the backyard (whose automatic sprinkler has failed) and on the roses in back (whose automatic sprinkler has failed).

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

And fail.

Hotter than the hubs out there. No clouds in sight, but once again the air feels almost as humid as effin’ Saudi Arabia on the shore of the effin’ Persian Gulf.

Drag hose.

Drag hose.

Drag hose.

Drag hose.

Drag….

Sick and tired of DRAGGING. In the HEAT!

In front: can’t find sprinklers. Appears some worthy soul has stolen them. You can’t leave anything out front that’s not red-hot or nailed down. What is the MATTER with me that I don’t seem to be able remember that little factoid?

Senility, no doubt.

*****

5:00 p.m. give or take.

Some worthy has definitely stolen the sprinklers off the (walled!) front patio. So it appears, anyway. Another search led to no sign of the escapees. So I think it’s safe to assume they were purloined.

grrrrr! Too bad I can’t electrify the damn things.

So tomorrow I’ll have to schlep to the Depot or the hardware store and buy another couple of damn sprinklers.

I mean…jeez! It’s not like the things cost much! Dude! You can’t afford to buy your own damn sprinklers????

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to secure the things — to wire them in place, for example. So…it looks like if you don’t want your sprinklers stolen,  you have to disconnect them from the hose every time you finish watering and lock them inside garage.

Chilly afternoon: only 88 degrees at 5:40 in the afternoon. Brrr!!!!  We’re told the temp is supposed to go town to 70 tonight… YOW!  Get out the wool blankets!

😀

Somehow, I find that a little dubious. It certainly hasn’t been as allegedly “cool” as predicted today. Wunderground is predicting highs in the 70s throughout the upcoming week.

Yeah. Sure.

 

Uh huh: “Another Beautiful Day in Arizona…”

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“…Leave us all enjoy it,” as the late Governor Jack Williams, that avatar of hickish literacy, used to crow on his morning radio show.

We have a chilly 80 degrees outside, with FORTY PERCENT HUMIDITY. Traipsing around the park with the dog was like spending 40 minutes in a sauna.

One good thing, though: not many other dog-walkers out there. That meant we got through the whole trip without a dog fight — neither real nor threatened. That was refreshing. I guess.

This — hot and soggy — is a typical day in Saudi Arabia. How my father (or any other Westerners) managed to survive TEN YEARS of physical, outdoor work in that Hellish climate escapes me.

Finally made it back to the house: the pooch very chipper, the human about to melt into the ground.

Meanwhile, during the entire trudge we were serenaded with an infernal RRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRR from Luke Air Force Base. That place is a good 20 miles from here.

My mother, an inveterate John Bircher patriot, used to simper on about how that racket was “the sound of freedom” as she sat on her back porch in Sun City, listening to blasting jets over her morning coffee.

This is what keeps me from moving to the blankly middle-class realms of Fountain Hills, where the weather is cooler, you could walk to the Mayo Clinic, and you’re within ten minutes of Scottsdale’s infinitely superior shopping. Passenger jets from Sky Harbor take off in the morning, headed north over Fountain Hills, and land in the evening, headed south. People out there bellyache all the time that they can’t have their morning coffee over breakfast or their post-prandial wine after dinner — not on the back porches that they paid handsomely to buy.

Who would imagine that, as you’re shopping for a house, you need to look into the noise from commercial and military plane traffic?

ooohhhh well…