Coffee heat rising

Every Moron on the Planet…

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No kidding. Go for a morning walk, and all the morons on the planet come bounding out of their homes, there to make trouble for the passers-by.

Idiot and his unleashed dobe were standing out in their unfenced front yard this morning. Naturally, his dog came charging after Ruby, who weighs all of about 25 pounds. Sheeee-ut!

Now here we are, unwinding at home over breakfast…uhhhhm… DREAM ON!

Bing bong!!! 

Former cleaning lady: now the woman my son has hired to babysit me all day.

DamNAYshun!

What I do NOT need is some dear soul underfoot all day, watching my every move.

Clearly my son fears that in my dotage I’m no longer competent to live in my home unmolested.

And what THAT means is that pretty soon I’ll have to move into the old-folkerie called The Beatitudes — or else into Orangewood, the one my father consigned himself to — so as at least to get one room without some intruder underfoot.

….And…THAT is not something I want to do. Not for love nor money.

Godlmighty, but this dear woman is a nuisance. GO AWAY, dearie! Leave me ALONE!

😀  😀  😀  😀  😀

If this is what I’m gonna have to contend with in my own home, day in and day out, I might as well move into one of those old-folkeries.

Godlmighty. Now she’s turned her phone on and is listening to some sort of yammer. Even though she’s got the volume turned way low, I can hear the yak yak yakity blah blah where I’m sitting, clear across the room.

* * *

Get up. Trudge to the office, in the back of the house. Make the bed on the way.

Fire up the desktop. Fiddle around.

Y’know… If this sh!t is what I’m going to have to contend with, day in and day out, in my own home, I might as well move into one of those prisons for old folks.

Pick up the dog’s Rx bottle, while she watches, watches, watches. Check to be sure that yes, I did give Ruby her morning dose, while our dear lady watches, watches, watches.

Realize there’s no way I can slip out the back way without this broad spotting me.

Well…maybe. But it would be tricky. And one way or the other, when I come back to the house, she’ll know it. And she’ll blab to my son.

Well. Y’know…. If he’s going to treat me like this — as a non compos mentis inmate — then I might as well sell the house and move into one of those horrible prisons for old folks. They gouge  you, gouge you, and gouge you some more. And because women in my family are spectacularly long-lived, that means effectively nothing will remain of my estate to leave to my son.

One of those places has set up a tour for me and the young man. Just got an email from one of their hustlers telling me not to worry, it’s not “institutional living.”

Give.

Me.

A.

Break!

As if I at this age I don’t have friends who have lived there and in places like it. How fukkin’ STUPID do these people think their customers are???????

Icky-Sticky Day!

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LOL! This is one of those days that don’t happen in Arizona: hot and HUMID. Very humid. 😀

It feels almost like the weather used to feel in lovely Ras Tanura, where I grew up in Saudi Arabia, on the shore of the Persian Gulf.

Not quite, though. There, I’ve seen it start to rain out of a clear blue sky: that’s how wet the air would get there.

Garden spot, eh?

Anyway, hereabouts we’re told the humidity is 32% just now. And for Arizona…well…that’s more than passing damp. 😀

No clouds, though: The sky is gorgeous sterling blue. And no sign of fugitive raindrops.

Strolled around the park this afternoon…rather later in the day than I should have: it was a little warm for strolling. That notwithstanding, though, it was not excessively unpleasant. And as usual, fun to watch kids playing and grownups lolling around.

I do love our neighborhood and our park. Struggling to stay here: to avoid being moved to an old-folks’ institution. How to avoid that — displacement, I mean — gets more and more difficult to intuit. I’m awfully afraid I’m going to be forced out of my home, sooner or later, on the grounds that I’m too old to take care of myself. We haven’t reached that point yet…but it’s hard to avoid the fact that we’re headed there.

Indeed, my son wants us to visit a place called the Beatitudes, down the road from the ‘Hood. To which I say horrors! I’ve had friends who lived there.

And no, it’s not a bad place, as institutions go. But….it’s just that I absolutely, positively, passionately HATE institutional living. I hated living in the dorms. And spending the next few years living in a dorm for old folks is NOT how I want to wrap up my life.

There simply must be a better way….

Why I don’t want to move into an old-folkerie

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So this guy is trying to get me to move into an old-folks’ home called The Beatitudes.

Right?  I do NOT want to live in any such place: hated living in the college dorms, and do not want to end my life on that note.

What does he do? He emails my son with “Do you have availability on Thursday October 8th at 10:30?”  Nary a word to me. The assumption being that as a doddering old bat, of course I have NOTHING else to do next Thursday.

And right there: that presumptiveness. THAT is why I do not want to live in one of those places.

Hired Help Humor

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This morning I discovered that someone stole a pair of shoes that I use every day.

I wouldn’t have put them “away” someplace where I couldn’t find them, because they have a standard “away” place in the closet. I would have put them in that place. If I carelessly left them out, they’d be sitting by the bed.

So presumably one of the hired help snabbed them.

Experience suggests that these “care givers” pull little stunts like this — stealing your shoes, spiking a dish of leftovers with ultra-hot chili — because they think it’s funny. Or maybe they think they’re getting back at you for some senile offense they imagine you did on purpose.

… … …

It’s bad enough to contemplate having to move into an institution for the last phase of your life. But dear God!  If this is how those folks behave in order to keep their wards under control, it will turn the last few months — or, God forfend, years — of one’s life into a living Hell.

If you can call that living.

I’m thinking it may be time to end things before they reach that point.

Swampy-Dampy Walk

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Midafternooon…and the sky is gray, the air is soggy: feels like it wants to rain but can’t work itself up to that much effort.

Just back from an idle, unplanned stroll around the ‘Hood, sans doggy. It is SO WET out there, you feel like you’re in a sauna! Glad I didn’t take the corgi: she would have melted.

What does Wunderground predict for our parts?

Huh???  Only 5% chance of rain?

What ARE they smoking?

In summary: all the weather sites are describing “clearing skies.”

Ohhhhh…kayyyy…  That gray stuff up there is kinda funny-looking “clear.” But whatEVER.

Despite the gently threatening skies and the soggy air, a walk around the park is moderately pleasant. What could be more pleasant than watching the young people playing on the greens and under the trees, after all?

Gotta tellya: This is the place! I want to live here until I die. At this point, that’s likely to be another ten or fifteen years. With luck.

My great-grandmother and her daughter, my great-aunt, managed to stay in their home in the Berkeley foothills until the last cat was dragged out. Ideally, that’s how I’d like to wrap up my life.

Well. We shall see, eh?

Pray for the best. Or something.

Cleaning Lady from Heaven…

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The Cleaning Lady from Heaven just shot out the door, having spent several hours scrubbing, dusting, and scouring the Funny Farm.

WHAT an AMAZING woman!

Seriously: you have never seen anyone work as efficiently or as hard as she does. And the result is just awesome. After she puts in an afternoon of slamming around, this place is literally — no exaggeration — spotless.

I couldn’t even begin to get the house this clean…not even if I worked as hard as she does or as long as she does.

Sooo lucky to have found this wonderful lady — by the usual means: a referral from a referral from a referral. She was working for a friend when my last house cleaner escaped. When I asked if she’d be interested in taking on another job, she said “yes.” What incredible luck!!