Coffee heat rising

When the Ground Turns to Jell-O

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Man, the earthquake news from Turkey brings back the memories…and stirs up my father’s unending admonitions that we must remember how lucky we were to be born in the U.S.A.

All the time we lived in Arabia — ten  long years — he regularly reminded me of that miraculous luck. In his case, it was pure ethnocentric chauvinism: he sincerely believed Americans were just “better” than everyone else.

But…well, yeah: you ARE lucky if you live in a country where the government passes laws to protect its citizens’ lives and safety, not just the spectacular wealth and power of the ruling class and their cronies. To understand that, all you have to do is watch those buildings full of men, women, and children as they tumble down and crash into piles of rubble.

My parents and I came back to the States in the late 1950s, at which time my mother ensconced us in a San Francisco apartment development called Parkmerced, near the shores of Lake Merced. It was a nice place to live, mostly garden apartments with a few 13-story high-rises. We dwelt on the sixth floor of one such high-rise, in a handsome two-bedroom apartment.

And my mother lived in absolute raw terror of earthquakes.

The day the 1957 earthquake hit, I was at school. We’d all had earthquake drills, so we ducked and covered and then, once the dust settled, marched outside and gathered in tidy rows on the playground.

Back in the tower, my mother apparently panicked. The first thing she remembered after the earthquake hit was finding herself downstairs in the middle of the street, running around in circles. How she got down six storeys, Heaven only knows.

BUT…the point at hand is that she did get down all those floors…and all those floors remained standing and intact. The school building also remained intact: the overturned file cabinets and scattered books were picked up, and we kids returned to class then next day.

Which brings us to the question at hand: if towers built in the 1950s could withstand a major earthquake, why couldn’t structures built since then do the same?

 

Super Bowl y-Cumin’ In…

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Ohhh hot diggety. Arizona is hosting the Stupor Bowl this year…the show will play at the big stadium out in Glendale, on the 101 freeway. Great fun and high thrills if you’re a football fan.

Heh…not so much if football isn’t your idea of entertainment. 😀

The place is going to be jammed with traffic, much of it out-of-towners. As those of you have enjoyed my bellyaching about the homicidal streets of Phoenix know, traffic here is a bitch under the best of circumstances. But when you have thousands of extra drivers unfamiliar with the roads, confused, and impatient to get where they’re going…hoooleee gawd!

The thing is slated for February 12, late in the afternoon. Today is the 5th. So that gives one full week to stock in food and batten down the hatches. Actually, less than that: you don’t want to be on the roads when that many out-of-towners are cruising around, whether or not they’re headed to their beloved Event. Presumably they’ll start pouring into the Valley along about the 10th.

So by then I figure I’d better have everything in the house that I need, so that I don’t have to drive the car around for at least a couple days before and a couple days after the great spectacle. Today is only the 7th, though, so that gives a whole week to stock up. Well…not quite. Since we’re nigh unto the height of the tourist season, this place will start jamming up right about now. So one thing I need to do today is schlep out to Costco, get the propane tanks refilled, and fight mobs to stock up on food and necessaries. Blech! Just how I wanna spend my day…

As the week grinds on, both Costco and the beloved AJ’s grocery will be chuckablock full of people preparing for Stupor Bowl parties. So…best to get the Costco frenzy out of the way today or tomorrow. Then along about Wednesday, pile in the regular groceries.

Ugh. Just what i wanna do on a beautiful day!!

AMEX to the Rescue!

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By Golly! American Express’s white charger just lurched into battle! All it took to apply the spurs was a couple of phone calls. 

The refrigerator mess has gotten worse and worse. The damn thing that I spent $1440 on is a piece of junk: verifiable, genu-wine junk. The retailer, B&B Appliances, refuses to take it back, telling me effectively “Tough nougies, and screw you very much.”

Guess I haven’t gone into detail about that fine fiasco.

My old fridge being on its last legs, I bought a new GE refrigerator to replace my old side-by-side compartment fridge  and freezer. The new one is an old-fashioned model with one refrigerator compartment and one top freezer compartment. This, because sometimes the side-by-side sections in the previous (otherwise perfectly fine…) fridge weren’t wide enough to accommodate some item I wanted to put in there.

I bought this at the venerable B&B Appliances, primarily by way of “buying local.” At the same time I also purchased a new microwave, because the old one would barely reheat a cup of coffee when set on “high.” I figure when Satan & Proserpine, the house’s previous owners, did their gigantic house remodeling job, they must have bought those appliances at the same time. So, of course…they’re crapping out at the same time!

Big mistake, this purchase:

  • The refrigerator compartment is too small to hold more than a day or two worth of food.
  • The freezer has no ice-maker.
  • The thing makes a weird, loud noise when it kicks on, a kind of uproarious BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….
  • Turns out you can’t buy ice trays for love nor money. NO ONE SELLS THEM! Well…except Amazon. And they’re all those plastic things, the ones you have to twist and wrestle with to get the ice cubes out. And good luck with that.
  • This means to have ice, I’ll have to buy bags of Crystal ice…no longer easy to find, because…well, everyone has fridges with ice-makers.

So…here I yam, figuring I’m going to have to donate this piece of junk to charity (won’t THEY be pleased!) and pony up another $1500 for a decent fridge. I trudge around Best Buy, eyeballing the merchandise. This morning — well, yesterday morning, because it’s 3 a.m. the next day as we scribble — I’m cruising home from Best Buy and AJ’s, and as I turn into the ’Hood, I spot Marge out in front of her house. Marge is the Late, Great Wade’s wife — he died in surgery for recurrent brain tumors. She has relatives in the Midwest and also a house up north in the mountains, so she’s not home a lot.

I stop and say hello. She asks how I’m doing, and I relate a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of my sad story.

Says she, barely taking a breath, “Have you disputed the charge with American Express?

Uhmmm….  “N-n-n-o-o…hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, do it. That’s why you have an American Express card.”

Holy Mackerel! Not to say “duuuuhhhhhh…..”

Back in the house…grab the AMEX card…grab the phone…dial the number on the back of the card. Describe the whole sad/outrageous story to the CSR. She takes my phone number. She says they’ll get on it…

Shortly, the phone rings: AMEX dispute/fraud department. I recite the tale to that guy. He transcribes the story in minute detail. And he seems to take this shenanigan quite seriously. He says they’ll have a chat with B&B.

Frankly, I’ll be VERY surprised if they get far. But on the other hand it was pretty clear that B&B — like everybody else and his little brother — figures they can take advantage of an Old Bat and get away with it. They may not feel the same way when confronted with the corporate might of American Express. 😀

In that case, presumably they’ll come and get their ludicrous excuse for a refrigerator. If not, I’m donating it to the Salvation Army, which at least will allow me to deduct some or all of the cost from my income taxes. Tomorrow morning I’ll buy or (preferably) borrow a Coleman cooler, which will hold food for a couple of days, until I can get Best Buy over here with a real refrigerator. Fortunately, I have a chest freezer, which can hold the currently small inventory of frozen stuff and maybe some ice.

Tomorrow (uhmm…make that “today”) Best Buy is sending a crew over to install the Ring camera and lights I bought. They’re going on the east side under the eaves (I hope), where they will capture a clear view of the shenanigans at Tony the Romanian Landlord’s co-ed reform school.

He had the darlin’s out of there for a week or 10 days — apparently after the cops ambushed him, he had to make some serious renovations to the inside of that house. But this afternoon he caravaned them all back in several cars. If these devices aren’t too hard to use, I may install another one over the front door, so I can see who’s outside before opening to the next pounding on the screen.

The little sweeties were throwing rocks at the side of the house again last night. And…heh! The front door to that house apparently sticks when you try to close it. So every time they go in or out, they SLAM!!!! the door so hard you can hear the thud! all the way on the far end of my house, where the concussion vibrates the walls and windows. Tony must figure that’s a real funny way to inflict a little extra revenge on the neighbors; otherwise he would have told the workmen he’s had over there to fix the goddamn door.

I imagine when they see that camera, they’ll throw rocks at that, too, until they break it.

Desert landscaping — most of the houses here have xeric landscaping — is often decorated with fake “streams”of river rock, fist-sized pieces of granite and whatnot eroded into smooth ovals, just about perfect for throwing around. I’ve got a fair amount of it in my front yard, and the house directly next door to the Romanian reform school also has a “river”of rock, giving the kiddies a gold mine of projectiles to throw around.

Buying the damn camera and installing it will set me back another $400, on top of the $1500 for the microwave and the junk fridge. Fortunately, there’s plenty in the checking account for the nonce. But it means that I’ll have to make another drawdown from savings to cover the bills.

Not the end of the world…unless we have another recession, another stock market crash. Which, the way life has been going of late, you can be sure will inevitably happen about the time all these fine “improvements” are installed.

Bang-Bangs in the Night

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{sigh} Two in the morning. Wide awake. Gunshots in the distance, emanating from Gangbanger’s Way. Pop pop pop sounding above the roar of wailing hotrods and motorcycles.

Lordie, how I hate living in Phoenix. Especially this part of Phoenix. It’s never quiet here.

Gangbanger’s delineates the middle-class zone flanking North Central Avenue from the dire slum of Sunnyslope (and I do mean “dire”: a drive through that place is like a visit to a Mexican barrio, where people live in huts and abandoned railroad freight cars). That balmy boulevard is frequented by bikers and gang members. The ‘Hood is technically part of Sunnyslope, though in fact most natives regard the area to the north of Gangbanger’s as the ‘Slope, and North Central as extending south from Gangbanger’s to about Camelback or Missouri. Whatever…the noise and the crime emanating from those northerly precincts are…well, characteristic.

That we are theoretically part of Sunnyslope (though no one who lives here would ever admit that) is what keeps real estate prices relatively low. I couldn’t even begin to afford this house if it were in a better part of town.

{moan!} Now Ruby the Corgi is awake. Is she going to demand to go outside?

Hmmm…not too insistently. Yet.

oook. whine.

Okay…i take that back…

Get up. Lift the dog off the bed. Follow her to the back door. Accompany her outside, barefooted. Not that cold out there, but still…surely there are other things to do at two in the morning. Well…2:30 now. Wait until she does her thing. Follow her inside. Bribe her with a dog treat to get back on the bed.

Gooood morning, America! {sigh}

Is this as terrible a place to live as I think it is?

Probably not. Our enclave, per se, is no slum, though we’re flanked to the north and to the west by districts that do deserve that accolade. You’d be crazy to put your kid in a public grade school here, though the high school (thanks to the efforts of one heroic teacher and her allies) is highly rated — nationally. People actually move here so as to get their kids into Sunnyslope High School. Which, when you think about it, is kinda bizarre.

Cheaper, by far, than having to put them in the Catholic or private high schools here. Brophy Prep, where we sent our son, will set your retirement date back quite a bit, as will All Saints Episcopal, the favored private grade school for the lawyerly and the doctorly set.

What a place! Cheaper than Southern California, no doubt, but still: Southern California Redux.

There was a reason I hated living in Southern California — several of them, as a matter of fact. When we first moved here, in the early 1960s, this place had its own character. Provincial, yes: but still…it was its own place. But now — largely thanks to our honored leaders’ pig-headed civic planning (they quite deliberately and openly modeled the Valley after the L.A. area), — it’s crowded, smoggy, hostile, noisy, and overall an unpleasant place to live.

Well. Unless you consider snow more unpleasant than the serenade of unmuffled engines and gunfire. And 112-degree summer days. 😀

I do not know that I would want to live in snow….matter of fact, I suspect I wouldn’t. But wouldn’t that be better than mobs and mobs of people, gunshots at two in the morning, and the serenade of gangbangers’ hogs?

There are quieter venues to live in this place. Sun City: there, you can enjoy the quiet of the mausoleum, punctuated by the roar of fighter jets emanating from Luke Air Force Base. Fountain Hills, way on the other side of the Valley, offers you the quiet of an upper-middle-class suburb, punctuated by the roar of passenger jets heading into Sky Harbor Airport. In between: noise, traffic, crime, and more noise.

The bikers have quieted down. Three in the morning. I’ve gotta go back to bed.

arrrrghhh!

Another Fine Day from Hell y-Cumin’ In…

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Yes: this is going to be a day from Hell. Only quarter to eight and I’ve emptied the refrigerator & freezer, packed what would fit into the big freezer in the back of the house; stashed the rest of it on the kitchen counter.

Can’t empty the refrigerator compartment until the guy gets here to deliver the new fridge, which could be any time between now (ten to 8 a.m.) and 5 or 6 p.m. So all that stuff will have to be taken out and stashed…who knows when? Who knows where? Then immediately placed in the new refrigerator, which we can only hope will chill down fast. Fortunately, it’s wintertime, so if I turn off the heat, the ambient air can be relatively cool in the house. So with any luck, nothing will spoil.

Meanwhile, the brats in Tony the Romanian Landlord’s day-care for juvenile delinquents* continue to make pests of themselves. Just now a big van drove up to that house and dropped off a bunch of them. One of the girls over there has taken to showing up at my door begging for help, claiming someone has hit her (quite possibly true, given what we know of the way he brought up his own daughters). After this, when I see that kid at the door, I’ll call a cop. She can explain the problem to the police, who are the ones who should know about it.

No sign of Pool Dude. It’s 8 a.m.  He’s usually here by 7:00. Hope this doesn’t mean we’ve lost him…I have nooo idea where to find someone else to do battle with that thing. He does a wonderful job: the water is pristine clear, with nary a sign of the usual algae curtains growing on the walls.

His presence or absence may be moot, though: with no end in sight to the growing Southwest water shortage, the city or the state may mandate that pools have to be drained. In that case, I may build a patio over the top of the thing. But…let’s borrow that trouble a little later.

Later this week: another expensive home improvement: installing motion-sensitive lights and a security camera on the side of the house facing the Romanian Reform School. The little dollinks throw rocks at the side of my house and the roof. Although I’ve seen them in action, I want some proof so that I can call the cops on him again. And if I can find out what agency he’s working with, I can put in a complaint with that outfit.

Four hundred dollah for that little embellishment!

Really, I should put the house on the market and move away from that mess.

That would make sense, eh? Blow 5 or 10 grand to escape a malicious nuisance? Right….

Probably makes more sense than fighting it. BUT…my son is dead-set against my selling this place and moving somewhere else. Why? Escapes me. I suspect the sub-text is that he may want this house for himself, and he hopes to sell the aged, un-air conditionable shack where he’s living now.

Hmmm… Supposed to rain tonight and all day tomorrow, continuing into the week. Goodie…a little more hassle!

A-n-n-d speaking of expensive home improvements: we’ve got delivery of a new refrigerator AND a new microwave scheduled for today. Yeah: they both crapped out at once, to the tune of $1500!!!

Satan and Proserpine, who were inveterate DIY nuts, replaced all the appliances in the kitchen. As one might expect of a set of gadgets installed at the same time, they’re all crapping out at once.

Actually, the built-in double oven crapped out a long time ago. Since I can’t afford to replace that and it’s not something I must have to live a halfway normal life, I use those ovens as storage cabinets. The countertop oven and the backyard BBQ take up the slack. In theory, I could even bake bread in the countertop oven, but since I can get excellent bread at the corner Sprouts and down at the beloved AJ’s market, that idea is moot.

Ohhh well. If I have to sell the house to get away from the Tony Situation, at least we’ll have two brand-new kitchen appliances as a selling point.

* Hmmm… Looks like I’ve never held forth on Tony’s Home for the Delinquent and the Hapless. Okay…well, that tale will be forthcoming, maybe today while we await the advent of the appliance guy. And what a tale it is!

Woman as Cargo Camel

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Women’s clothing, as those of you who are female know, often has no pockets. If pockets exist, they’re more decorative than functional. Yet women, especially mothers, have to carry around piles of junk and debris. If you have kids, you need to haul stuff for them. But even if you don’t: a woman’s wallet is not made to to go into a pocket. Hence, the purse: a pack for a pretty little camel.

Some time ago, I decided to throw over those traces. I wanted to quit lugging a purse around, once and for all. Reasons abound:

  • Hauling a bag over your shoulder or in your hand everyplace you go is a nuisance.
  • It makes you a target for purse-snatchers and muggers.
  • Purses are easy to misplace, easy to forget.
  • Once you’ve lost a purse with your wallet in it, the resulting hassle defies belief:
    • Searching from pillar to post for the thing
    • Calling the bank to disable use of lost bank cards and checks
    • Ordering new bank cards and checks
    • Lost cash, if you carry cash with you (I no longer do so, for exactly this reason)
    • The amazingly time-consuming hassle of replacing a driver’s license
    • More hassle to replace other forms of ID and entry cards
    • Buying a new wallet, which at best rquires an Amazon order, but more likely will require traipsing to a department store
    • Putting someone else up to buying groceries and the like until replacements arrive

On and on and on…

Contemplating these joys, and, after having been chased around an Albertson’s parking lot by a panhandler (thief?), I decided to go into full rebellion: REFUSE to carry a purse around.

This is more difficult than one would think, because of the way women’s clothes are designed — presumably to fit some clothing maker’s idea of “sexy.” About the only clothing item that consistently has pockets is a pair of jeans. And even then, pockets in women’s pants are often shallow and tight, making it difficult to carry even a small wallet. And most women’s wallets are anything but “small” — the maker’s assumption being, reasonably enough, that the thing will be carried in a purse.

So…how to pull it off?

Several strategies, at least one of which entails some risk:

  • Hide your driver’s license in your car, so that you always have it at hand..
  • Get copy of your driver’s license to carry into a store, in case someone demands to see it when you go to write a check or use a charge card.
  • Get a metal card carrier and stash all your ID and credit cards in it.

Obviously, keeping your driver’s license in your car is, in some respects, a bad idea: anyone who steals your car or even just breaks in will be stealing one of your key pieces of identification. However if you’re lugging a purse around, all you have to do is forget it someplace or get it yanked off your shoulder as you’re walking across a parking lot. I’ve come to regard stashing it in the car as worth the risk.

Accepting that risk frees me from having to lug a bag everywhere I go, from trying to find someplace safe to stash it when I get to where I’m going, from having to remember to take it with me when I leave that destination, and from the risk of purse-snatching. It also means I have to look for clothing that has pockets — and pretty much precludes wearing anything very “fashionable.”

Fortunately, because I no longer go into an office, I can live in jeans. With the shift from office to working online from home, this is probably true for more women than it has been in the past.

And I’ve found that it’s very much worth the effort to shed the purse-hauling custom. Without a bag full of identification, cash, phone, bubble gum, and whatnot, the local Albertson’s parking lot — a haven for panhandlers and shady types — becomes a great deal less menacing. The risk that I’ll misplace an indispensable piece of identification almost disappears. No bag hanging off my shoulder means no sagging clothing, which means I can wear lighter, cooler shirts in the summertime. And it’s one fewer thing to have to remember all the time.