Coffee heat rising

Stop the World? Yea, verily…

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As I was saying the other day: Stop the World! 😀

Mercifully, this morning the world does seem to have come to a stop. When I woke up, I thought TODAY I HAVE TO TAKE THE CAR TO GET THE REAR BUMPER REPLACED and ooooh lhudly sing goddam I’ve gotta be there by 7:30 and I have NO idea where the body shop is!

Hell and damnation, what a way to greet the accursed day!

Even worse, I’d say, than yesterday, which was quite the little winner.

Along about mid-day, it was down to the gourmet grocer’s. Come prancing out with my purchases. Toss them in the back of the vehicle. Jump in. Start the engine. Can’t see traffic coming on either side, because much larger critters are parked to the left of me and parked to the right of me. E-a-a-s-e out into the lane and

WHAM!!!!!!!!

Some sunovabitch runs into me.

It’s my fault, of course. Because he had the wrong of way, being in the traffic lane and not in a parking spot.

We call a cop to report the dust-up. Cop refuses to write me a ticket, because — says he — we’re on private property.

{can you imagine???}

Welp. Things brightened up a little when I looked at the computer and realized today is Saturday, not Monday. This means I won’t have to spend several hours twiddling my thumbs in the body shop’s waiting room today, anyhow. But more to the point, it means I have all of today and all of tomorrow to drive into glummest northwest Phoenix to locate the place. And that means I won’t have to flail around in Monday’s morning rush hour searching for it.

It also meant that Ruby and I could go for our morning doggy-walk, uninterrupted.

So along about 6 a.m., it was out the door, dragged by a 35-pound beast.

Ruby l-o-o-o-o-ves the park. Ohhh, how she loves that damn park! So whenever we go out for a doggy-walk, she invariably drags me in that direction.

Today I decided to indulge her: why not?

Then again…why?

See, the problem with the park — well, one of its problems — is that at this hour the place is overrun with dogs.

See that big sign at the entrance? The one that reads

DOGS MUST BE ON LEASH

???

You’d be surprised how many of your fellow citizens can’t read. Any time you go over there — particularly during the Doggy Parade hours — the damn place is overrun with dogs racing back and forth off-lead.

A corgi, though to the naked eye a cute little teddy-bear of a dog, is not a teddy-bear. It’s a short German shepherd.

And, like Anna the GerShep before her, Ruby wants little more from life than the opportunity to clear the earth of other dogs.

So if you come bounding up to me with your own teddy-bear on a leash, Ruby is gonna go after it. And if your effing dawg is running around off-lead, then I am going to get dragged into a dog fight.

This is why I try to avoid that damn park as much as possible.

But not today. Nothing would do but what we had to charge over to the park on this beautiful, cool morning with high clouds prancing in the morning breeze.

First off, a Creep spots me. And he is a creepy one.

See…when you’re born female, you learn to avoid certain types of men. And by the time you’re about 20, you’ve learned to recognize those types on sight, from a considerable distance.

He starts to follow us.

I catch up with a couple of older men and ask if I can walk with them. They clearly think I’m crazy but say OK.

Natcherly, we just get going when Ruby stops to dump on the grass.

So much for that strategy.

The two guys having gone on their way, I decide Discretion Is the Better Part, and we head out of the park, homeward-bound.

My cookies are frosted.

Seriously: God DAMN it!!!!!!! You can’t even go for a walk in the neighborhood park — for which you pay with your taxes — without harassment.

It does look like it’s going to rain pretty quick, even though Wunderground emotes to the contrary. They predict just 2 percent chance of precip today, 5 percent tomorrow.

Oh well.

This will mean that later today I can drive up to the alleged location of the auto body shop (and drive, and drive, and drive…it’s halfway to freakin’ Ahwatukee!), which will help a great deal tomorrow, since I have to be there at 7:30 in the morning. Right in the middle of the effin’ rush hour!

Unless forced to do otherwise, I stay off the roads here during the rush hour. Arizona drivers make California drivers look stodgy. You take your life in your hands every time you get behind a steering wheel here…but your chances of meeting oblivion go way up during the rush hours.

Especially when you’re pretty vague about where you’re going…

Oh well. It’s long past breakfast time. The human is starved. And so…awaaayyyyy!

Where were we…about stopping the world?

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Gawdalmighty, “STOP THE WORLD” seems to be the byword of the day.

It’s after dark. The dawg and I are fed. It’s too crazy out there to go for an evening doggy-walk, so we’re hunkered down.

And hunkered in full stop the world mode.

A cop helicopter is buzzing the ‘Hood. Lemme tellya: these guys don’t burn pricey aviation fuel for nothin’. They’ve been overhead for a half-hour or 45 minutes: searching, searching, searching. Rattling the windowpanes. Disturbing the dawg. Disturbing the human.  Now they’re cruising above the streets just to the north of us.

Have I said how much I hate living here?

But…

But….

But……

Is there anyplace better to live?

Truth to tell, what that cop said right after the Great Home Invasion Episode appears to be true: “It’s the same all over the Valley.” From the Richistans to the blue-collar slums to the ghettos, it really DOES appear to be “the same all over the Valley.”

Okay, wtf is going on now? Over to the neighborhood Facebook page, usually the fastest source of fact and gossip…

H. Acken

Was anyone else asked to stay inside?

Loren Rohrer

Helicopter is saying to surrender now….that can’t be good….

Morgan Hoaglin

I am betting on the K9 here
Sonja Marie Clarke Yurkiw
What’s happening with the helicopter?

Megan Tranter
          A truck was pulled over on Drey Drive. One of the occupants fled the scene. There’s where it stands just now. But…Ughhhhhhh am I ever tired of it.

You ‘n’ me both, sister!!!

Wednesday, October 4, 2023…Stop the fukkin world, already….

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De bonne heure  (which is a way of saying “at the crack of dawn”)…

Well, the cop cars have moved on from Tony’s Home for Juvenile Delinquents. 😀

When Ruby and I went out along about 6 or 6:30 this a.m., TWO cop cars were parked over there. Must’ve been quite the little dust-up under way. It’s quiescent now. A car is parked at the curb along my house’s east wall…presumably a vehicle belonging to one of the keepers. The policia were gone when we got back from this morning’s doggy-walk, about an hour later. With any luck, maybe they will have found something new the County can use to bop Tony about the head and shoulders.
hmmmmmm…….  Y’know….if I were a parent and I learned that a school bus my kid was riding — for the Glendale Union High School District(!) — was detouring off its route to pick up one or more urchins from a home for juvenile delinquents in the Phoenix Union High School District, I would NOT be happy.
* Which brings up another little irregularity: We’re in the Sunnyslope High School district, not in the Glendale Union district. Or the Phoenix Union High School District.
So..WTF???
Ever entertaining!
Gorgeous morning…actually COOL out as dawn cracked.
****
time marches on
****
4:00 p.m.
Late Afternoon 
Irrigation Dude is here. Has been all afternoon…speaking of jobs one is happy one does not have. He’s dug up the back side yard, rebuilt the underground irrigation on the west side of the house, got most of it working. Arrgha!
Now his son just showed up, a grown young man evidently intended to inherit the business.
I yam starved, having done without lunchoid. Even though it’s only a little after 4, I’m about to expire. Soooo….
What we have on the menu is shrimp sautéed in garlic, tossed with boxed tomato sauce over pasta.
Yay! Was delighted to find the shrimp in the freezer, and even more delighted to find a box of “canned” tomatoes in the cupboard. To say nothing of a bottle of white wine.
Just watching Irrigation Dude dig and haul and gadgetize all afternoon — in the heat — has left me exhausted.
***
Yea verily: So exhausted I can’t think clearly. As in WHY THE FUCK WON’T THE GODDAMN OVEN TIMER SHUT THE FUCK UP! 
 
Nothing that I do makes it stop. It’s not showing a count-down. As far as I can see, it’s not on. But every five minutes or so, it starts in again with beep…beep…beep…beep…   Damned if I can figure out why, and therefore damned if I can shut it off. Tonight I’ll have to go to bed behind  a closed door… 
 
Oh…now whatever it thinks it’s doing is done: BEEEP BEEEP BEEP BEE…
 
Run over there and shut it off. But don’t see how to shut it completely off once and for all because I don’t see HOW to shut it off, period. Before I go to bed tonight, forgodsake, I’ll have to go outside and shut off the damn breaker switch to the kitchen!
 
Stop the world, Lord. I wanna get offf!
***
5:15 P.M.
Tired. Spectacularly tired.
Moderately hungry, but not very… Read: “too tired to eat.” Pasta is boiling. Unclear what I’m gonna do if I can’t shut off the fuckin oven clock’s dingy-bonger.
BEEEP BEEEEP
Fuckaroonies!!!!. Let’s see if we can shut it off at the breaker box.
Yes. That shut it up.
Dump the raw pasta into the pan of boiling water. (The stove runs on gas, so is exempt from the goddamn breaker box’s present set of antics.)
Walk into the family room. Sit down. Pick up computer, Proceed to…to…
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP 
God DAMN it. 
Traipse to the kitchen. Glare at the oven. Click off. 
 
 Off, godammit! Off off OFF!
 
Quiescent for the moment,. Dunno how long that will last. And have NO idea how I’m gonna get any sleep tonight if the fucker doesn’t QUIT IT!!!!!
*****
Only Quarter to Six…
Soooo exhausted that all I wanna do is GO TO BED!
But it’s too fiukkin hot to go to bed, despite the air-conditioner pounding away…and pounding away…and pounding away nonstop. Expensively nonstop!
Finally get the goddamned oven timer to shut up.
How???
Noooooo idea!
6:03 p.m.
The fukkin oven timer has stayed shut up. WHY, I cannot imagine. But it this point, I figure discretion is the better part… The fewer questions asked, the better.
Ya know what?
I HATE living in the 21st century! 
It’s seven fukkin’ types of Purgatory….
What a time. 
What a place.
What a people.
And…and…and…
 
Every line in that little graphic I’ve had to do three times. AT LEAST. 
‘
Stop the fukkin world. I wanna get off!

Another Fine Day y-Cumin’ In….

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Boyoboy, I can hardly wait. /s/

That’s /s/ with a vengeance. You know it’s time to go when you realize you’re unstuck in time: I’m a creature of the 20th century that most surely does NOT belong in the 21st century.

This afternoon I have to drive to a huge mid-town hospital complex to meet a new doctor. This, because I decided to go in search of a new GP, one that is not part of the Mayo bureaucracuy. Not that MayoDoc isn’t wonderful — she’s very good. The problem is that the Mayo is halfway to freaking Payson, over a huge main drag that is always under construction

No overstatement: I cannot remember when I haven’t had to weave and trudge and stop-and-start through mile after mile of roadwork on Shea Boulevard, the only way out there from here. This was worth it when my great old doc was out there. But the woman onto whom they foisted me when he retired has made it very clear she doesn’t like older female patients and she especially doesn’t like me.

No kidding. Last time I was out there, she actually grimaced when I walked in her office door.

I’ll keep my place in line out there by visiting once a year, but meanwhile, I need to get a doctor in town for routine stuff. So…today we’ll see if this woman at Good Samaritan will be a decent fit.

Good Sam is where my son was born. It was adequate…I guess. The main thing I remember about it…heh….this is soooo stupid:

When the kid arrived on this earth, I didn’t know I was in labor until he was about to pop out. Why? Because labor does not hurt as much as your period.

I’d been told ooooohhh dear ooooohhhh dear, giving birth would be SOOOOO hideously painful, eek awk be ready for serious torture.

Uh….well…no.

At no time, not from beginning to end, did delivering that nine-pound boy hurt anywhere much as a routine menstrual period.

Down at Good Sam, which was the closest hospital to where we lived at the time, I overhear some broad simpering — no kidding, these were her words — “How can she stand it?” 

Idiot. How do you think I could stand it every fuckin’ 28 days? 😀

This: the result of doctors not believing what women say. Many times I’d told doctors that my periods could drive me to the brink of suicide. And just as many times I got the pat on my pretty little noggin and the there there, little girl, it’s all in your head.

You wonder why I stay away from doctors as much as possible? Some of these folks do make Christian Science look good…

Oh well. I figure it’ll take about an hour to get downtown through the traffic, find the parking garage, navigate to the fifth floor of their office building…and how CAN i count the ways i’m not lookin’ forward to that?

In other sylvan realms:

Ordered up some rat repellent from Amazon. These finally arrived yesterday. Whenever I get off the computer and then have some breakfast, I’ll have to climb into the attic and toss a few of these things around — they come in the form of bags — and then place the rest of them in strategic places around the garage, where Ruby can’t get at them.

This appears to be truly nasty stuff. After I’d picked up the box to read the instructions this morning, I rubbed an itchy eye with my left hand. Understand: I hadn’t even opened the damn box!

The microscopic amount on my hands made my eye BURN AND BURN AND BURN. I thought I was gonna have to go to the ER! Finally, after I scrubbed my face twice with soap and water, it stopped. Thank the heavens for small favors!

Now we know, anyway, not to even touch the package without wearing disposable gloves.

***********

11 ayem…

Yes. Ever have one of those days? You know…where everything you touch goes

SPROI-I-I-N-N-G

???

Yeah.Well….this is turning into one of those days. Whatever I’ve tried to do and had to do has tangled itself up, unraveled itself, fallen apart. jammed together, whatEVER. 

Finally got the supposedly rat-repellent bags of aromatic mint deposited here, there, and everywhere around the garage. Yeah. Uh huh.

Frankly, I think have about a snowball’s chance of this stuff working. Or doing anything other than emitting a stink that probably annoys humans as much as it annoys rats. If it annoys rats, that is.

There are those who believe it does repel our furry little friends,. But apparently it’s a short-term solution.

Some have suggested we might as well give up the endless war on rats and learn to live with the li’l fellas. This would be fine if they didn’t chew up the wiring, rip out the insulation, feast on the citrus harvest, and carry one disease or another. Or another. And another….

At this point, I’m up in the air. From what I can tell after talking to a couple of exterminators, for a small fortune those guys don’t do anything more than you can do yourself.

The most effective tactic would be to put out poison. But I surely can’t do that with Ruby around. If she didn’t eat the stuff herself, she’d almost certainly take a taste of any dead livestock she found out there. And that would be the end of her.

The fallback tactic: Cat.

Not just any cat, but a Manx cat.

These critters, in addition to being very smart and highly active, are big enough to take on a damned rat.

Yes. But.

Heh. They’re big enough to take on Ruby, too.

Over the years, Ruby has learned that the Human is highly entertained when she chases Other Daughter’s goddamn cats out of the backyard.

(Other Daughter is Tony the Romanian Landlord’s less-favored adult daughter. Apparently she doesn’t conform to his expectations well enough to be in line to inherit the Romanian Empire. But he does care for her, so much so that he has bought her a house two lots to the west of the Funny Farm. She’s a cat lady. There have been times when she’s probably had six or eight cats down there. She doesn’t run the AC: she leaves the windows and doors open, so the critters roam in and out. And if you have a bird feeder, your yard is the first place the little kitties roam…)

Anyway, the result is that Ruby delights in chasing furry things around the yard.

Unlike cats, though, rats are unfazed. They shoot up a tree or over a wall and then shortly come right back.

*more to come*

Another NOT a Disaster…waiting to be proven…

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LORDIE what a day!

Driving from pillar to post, chasing after the truth, bathing in nostalgia, getting…essentially nowhere.\

Gaaahhhhhhh!

In comes a notice from American Express. They think I owe them something well in excess of $2,000, and I haven’t paid it. This alleged bill is said to be massively overdue.

My records say that yea verily, I certainly DID pay them, and did so electronically.

But…but…FIRST we learn of some other snafu at the credit union. Frankly, at this very moment I’m so tired I’m well beyond describing it. Just be assured: it was silly.

Get into the Dog Chariot and drive out to the credit union on the ASU West campus. Drive and drive and drive. It’s a bitch of a drive out there. They examine the evidence and agree that yep: the whole thing is silly. It’s declared fixed.

Stop by the upscale Sprouts near the university on the way home. Grab food.

Drive home: driving driving driving…

There I find the bizarre notice from AMEX.

Call AMEX. Reach a CSR who hasn’t a clue. She doesn’t get it that I indeed paid the bill and nothing should be owing. Finally she seems to figure it out, but…this li’l lady, I do not trust.

Pile all the AMEX paper into the car.

Drive to the downtown credit union, where they have CSRs who work with business executives, not with retirees and ASU faculty. Drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and…

Finally make it down there.

Show their teller the paperwork. Explain that AMEX thinks they haven’t been paid.

She pulls up the month’s records of payments and income.

“They certainly have,” says she. And she pulls out the paperwork to prove it.

Gather the incomprehensible paper trail. Stumble back out to the car.

So tired I can hardly see.

Drive homeward homeward homeward…this time through the heart of Phoenix’s Willo district, where DXH and I lived for ten years or so.

Such a beautiful area.

How I miss it!

Drive past the street where both our beloved babysitters lived: two women who had raised their kids handsomely and set out to raise other people’s kids, for a fee. Miss those two wonderful ladies.

Past the street where my dear friend and editor at Phoenix Magazine lived. Miss him and his wife a lot.

Northward through haunts and shops that we used to patronize. Miss the Willo neighborhood. Miss it very much.

Still…as the years go by, driving in Phoenix gets more and more like driving in Southern California. In some places, I’d’ve sworn I was driving around (un)lovely Long Beach. Never having been fond of SoCal, said state of affairs does not speak well for my mood about this place. Driving driving driving driving…finally get back into the’Hood.

Spot WonderAccountant just heading out as I pull into my driveway. Waylay her and let her know I’d like some dibs on her time tomorrow, by way of figuring out…WTF happened with American Express and how to handle it.

Tomorrow, then, I’ll have to get on the phone to AMEX again and do battle again. This time I have evidence that the bill was paid. But just now I’m to tired to even contemplate that upcoming squabble. Besides, by then with any luck I’ll have WonderAccountant on my side…and she’s still young enough to have a functioning brain.

Surprise!!! NOT a Disaster!

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Yes.

For a change, something went more or less right today. And when I say “a change,” I ain’t kidding: whatever I’ve touched and whatever has touched me has gone SPROOOOINNNNNGGGGGG!!!

Mostly this has had to do with money. AMEX claims it wasn’t paid; AMEX claims a payment bounced (bullsh!t to that!); WonderAccountant’s mind is boggled; Financial Dude has retired and gawd only knows WHAT is becoming of my investments…and on and on and brain-banging on.

This afternoon, after I’ve enjoyed a good two hours of wrestling with everything that could go wrong and did go wrong, the doorbell goes off: BING BONG!!!!

This causes the dog to go off:

ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!!!!!!!!!

Leap up. Run to the living-room. Nobody there. Truck is pulling out from the curb. Oh hell, now what?

Oh!

Now what is the lampshade I ordered from Amazon!

My favorite living-room lamp is a big old brass number my mother bought in San Francisco, when we came back from Arabia. A handsome number indeed, it still retains its original silk lampshade (I think…unless she bought a new one after we moved to Arizona, while I was off at the university).

That shade started to fall apart, and I realized — alas — I would have to buy another one.

You understand…she bought the thing about in 1957 or ’58… And that lamp has stood on a table in her house or mine all those years since then. That would make the lamp and that lampshade 65 or 66 years old!

Can you imagine a retail product sold today lasting that long?

Hah! Fat chance, as we used to say back in the 1950s.

😀

So I break the shade out of the box, with considerable trepidation.

It does measure 14″ x 14″, just as the old one did…but somehow it looks slightly different. Looks a little smaller. But it’s not smaller. It does fit the lamp. And, mirabilis…

It looks OK.

Not quite the same as the original. But there’s a limit to how much you can ask, eh?

For inscrutable reasons, it looks rather smaller than the old shade. But…it’ll do. If you didn’t know about the old shade, you’d think this one looks just fine.

Amazon has jimmied the image so there’s no way in hell I can copy it for you. So you’ll just have to guess at how it looks. God forfend we should help them sell their products, eh? 😀

Here it is on Etsy, though…for 20 bucks less than I paid for it at Amazon. Memo to self: after this…check other websites before buying from Amazon!!!