Coffee heat rising

And now…Friday Afternoon

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LOL! The Dawg and the Human dodged some very soggy bullets this afternoon. Doggy-dodgey???? 😀

You should SEE the wonderful, fantastic storm that’s pouring outside the bedroom window, from the inside of which  — mercifully — Ruby and I are watching the weather.

Hardly any wind. The rain is pouring straight down. And pouring down is the term. Man! It’s whaling down like a fire hose! Fortunately, we who are the mammalian set are hunkered inside, under what appears to be a good, sturdy roof. No sign of any leaks…not that I can see, anyway.

If a leak were gonna happen, it would be there now. What a freshet! 

The street out front is flooded from curb to curb. Fortunately, the front and back porches slant ever-so-slightly away from the house, In front, we’ve got a little lake out there: must be two inches deep, at least. Maybe more like three, right outside the front door.

In back, it’ll be a good two weeks before the swimming pool evaporates enough to add more water from the hose.

And the thunder rolls….

…and rolls…and rolls…and ROLLS. And so do the clouds.

It’s something to see, that’s for sure. 

************************

Whew! Time passes: The Weather Drama is letting up a little bit. Still pouring rain, that’s for sure. But not something to make Noah proud….

The pool level is now up to the lip of the Cool-Deck. But…hmmm…I don’t think it will overflow unless we get enough rain to raise the water level another two or three inches.

If we do…well…overflow may be the least of our problems.  Still…we’d have to get an actual tornado to bust up the house or the roof. Or knock over those big trees on the west side. So I reckon we’ll be fine, real-life tornadoes not being the sorta thing you tend to see around here.

We can get some lively windstorms, but not the kind that go round and round! 😀

******************

Ah HAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!

Lookee here what I found: a gift from our honored son. A bottle of premium alcohol-removed wine!!!

JUST what I need to soothe my jangling nerves!!!!

😀 😀 😀

What could be better, eh? Or, we might add, more hilarious.

Hmmmmm….  Let us inspect….

(The house, that is: not the fake booze…)

*********

Okay….I don’t see, offhand, any serious damage out there. Roof looks OK, as far as I can tell. That doesn’t mean it is OK: only that I can’t see any alarming damage. Trees are still upright…no serious breakage there.

Testing M’hijito’s fake wine…

…a-n-n-d-d…

It’s just as ridiculous as you would expect!!
😀  😀  😀

Fully devoid of flavor. ANY flavor.

{chortle!!} Welp, one more thing’s for sure: I ain’t walkin’ up to the store through the puddles to pick up a bottle of real wine. 😀

T0morrow, maybe?????

***

hmmmm…. We’re told a low-pressure zone over Southern California will keep the rainy weather here for a few days. eeeek eeeek! FLASH FLOODS HEAVY RAIN HAIL STRONG WINDS DANGEROUS LIGHTNING eeeek eeek! 

Be scared. Be very scared. 

Friday Morning…

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Not yet 8:30…the Dawg and the Humann have rolled out of the sack, trudged around the neighborhood, perused the pool and the yard, chowed down on whatever was in the fridge, slurped up coffee, read the news (and then some) and now…

Now?  Wish nothing more than to go back to bed.

😀

I should give lessons on how to waste time. Wonder how much people would pay for a course in professional time-killing?

My plan for today was to visit a venerable old-folkerie called Orangewood, a single-story spread about three blocks up the road from the house where DXH and I lived while M’hijito was in high school.

Question: Do I wanna live in that place?
Question: Would there be any benefit to moving over there?
Question: Could I duplicate its services and benefits right here in my house?

Answers:

* Hell, NO! I hate loathe and despise institutional living and do not wish to spend the last months or (God forfend!) years of my life in a dormitory for old folks.

* Yes. Plenty of benefit. You have someone else to clean up after you. You have a cafeteria serving up piles of chow…a “benefit” only if that’s the kind of gunk you like to eat. You have a doctor on the premises, one who materializes, as he did for my father, the minute you have a stroke. You have lots of company. You have a taxi service that will schlep you to appointments off-campus — for “free.”

* Y’know…I’ll bet I can. Turns out my cleaning lady used to go into people’s homes and provide day-to-day services for the agèd and the infirm. If she was doing that, others surely are, too. I suspect I can hire someone to provide most or all of the services that Orangewood provides. Only…in peace and quiet. Without serenades from the half-deaf neighbor’s TV set. Without annoying rules. Without disgusting institutional food.

If she was doing that for a living, that means other folks are doing it. So…one of my assignments just now is to call around and find out how to find such folks, how much they cost, and whether they really can do a decent job of it.

So there you have it: the present Project. Find out if it’s possible to replicate the services of an old-folkerie in your own home. And if so: start getting into position to do exactly that.

The longer I can stay out of any such place, the fewer weeks and months I’ll spend in old-age misery. At least, so I figure. Stands to reason, anyway.

Really: There is no answer, is there?

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He had already decided that he wanted to move out of Sun City and into Orangewood, the old-folkerie of his choice. But she was having none of it.  Because he adored her, he wasn’t about to insist that she move someplace where she didn’t want to live. Surely 10 years in Saudi Arabia must have been enough of that!

So they stayed in Sun City until, eventually, her cigarette puffing and the effects of the gawdawful meds for the gawdawful gastric diseases she picked up in Arabia killed her. And he was ready: within hours after she died, he had the place packed up, an apartment rented at the old-folkerie, their house on the market: and he was ready to move.

I couldn’t have lived there, at that old-folkerie. It was institutional misery on a grand scale…just horrid! I could barely stand the rules in grade school, to say nothing of having to accustom oneself to living in a prison for the elderly.

The key, I think, was that he didn’t mind institutional living. He’d spent most of his adult life on ships, going to sea, What would have made me crazy felt like normal living conditions to him. And without my mother at his side, there was no reason for him to have to take care of a house.

To him, living in Orangewood, a holding pen for the elderly, felt normal. It must not, at base, have felt much different from living on a ship: Crowded conditions. Bad food. Someone else’s schedule dictating your life. He seemed to like it…and in fact, my guess is he may have liked it more than owning and having to run his house.

My mother, sadly, died soon after he retired — in her mid-sixties. She smoked herself to death. Her relatives — rabid Christian Scientists — didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. She did both: a-plenty. Basically, she smoked herself right into the grave.

Seriously: she was never awake when she didn’t have a cancer stick in her mouth. You knew when she woke up in the night because you could smell the stink from her f*cking cigarette. You knew that she was awake in the morning because the first thing she did before she lifted her head from her pillow was light up a f*cking cigarette. You knew when she was about to turn out the bedside lamp at night because the last thing she did before she went to sleep was to puff her way through one last f*cking cigarette. And that, amazingly, is no exaggeration.

He smoked, too, but not every living, breathing moment of conscious existence. He probably went through eight or ten cigarettes a day, if that many.

She smoked constantly.

Literally: she was never conscious when she wasn’t smoking. And no, she did NOT care that her sidestream smoke made her little girl sick. No, she did NOT care that I asked her to please not smoke so damn much around me. No, she did NOT care that doctors told her the smoking would kill her.

Not surprisingly, the habit did kill her. In a way, the surprise is that it let her live so long: she died on my birthday in her 65th year.

Sixty-five is a lot of years to puff your way through every goddamned conscious moment, eh? So you’ve gotta figure she was a pretty tough character…all things considered.

He loved her so. Oh, my, how he loved her.

***

No, he never complained about her f*cking tobacco habit. He smoked, too, but nothing like as much as she did.

He cared for her, lovingly and richly, through every ugly minute of the last weeks and months of her life. Did it even register with her that her idiotic habit created weeks of torture for him? If it did, apparently she didn’t care; no more than she cared that her fu*king clouds of smoke made her little girl sick.

***

After she died, he moved out of their sweet Sun City house. I’d say he couldn’t stand to stay there after the torment she’d put him through…but that wasn’t true at all. Before she fell ill, he had already decided to move into the (horrid, IMHO!) retirement/nursing home in town, an institution called Orangewood. It consisted of tiny apartments, barely big enough for one or two people, in an environment where you were watched every G.D. moment, regaled by the neighbors’ idiot TV shows, and fed disgusting institutional food.

Couldn’t have been much different from living on shipboard, I guess.

He seemed OK there, and before long took up with a hag whom he (foolishly!) married. And there he lived unhappily ever after.

Yeah. My mother killed herself. And she sure as Hell didn’t do him any good.

***

I never did understand why, when she knew she was making herself hideously sick, why she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she was making her daughter sick. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she was piling awful, ugly work onto the man who loved her more than life. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she’d have a shot at living longer if she’d quit with the cancer sticks. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she stank. And stank. And stank of fucking cigarette smoke. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew her whole home stank. And stank. And stank of fucking cigarette smoke. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew he would have to watch her die, one ugly inch at a time. But she just kept right on puffing away.

WHY???? What on earth, what in the name of God would make you persist with that?

That was the thing that puzzled me, and still does. She must have known how much she was making him suffer. She must have known how miserable she was making her daughter. WHY would you do that to the people who love you?

Yeah: it’s an addiction. But y’know: people can get over addiction. When you can see you’re harming the people around you who care about you, the sane thing to do is to quit harming them. How hard is that, really?

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Garden Spot!!!

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So saith the beloved Wunderground, as we scribble: 103 degrees(!) with a 15% chance of rain…  Glub!!!

Seriously: It feels like (un)lovely Saudi Arabia out there: Hotter than Hell and as humid as the inside of an active shower stall.

We’ve got pretty clouds fluffing their way across the sky…so I’d suggest (being the expert weatherperson that I am!) a bit more than a 15% chance of rain. Whaddaya bet that by sundown tonight, we’ll have not a CHANCE of rain but REAL, PALPABLE water falling out of the sky?

😀

Fluffy clouds or no, it’s hotter than the hubs out there. Vaguely, I’d planned to stroll over to one of the neighborhood markets (what we have here, within walking distance, are an Albertson’s (same as a Safeway), a Sprouts, a Walgreen’s, and a Fry’s. Plus some smaller stores of diverse varieties.

Not in this heat, though!

If it cools off enough, the Ruby and I can assay another stroll around the park. But…I kinda doubt it. This sort of humid heat, when found in (un)lovely Arizona, doesn’t cool down real quick, even after the sun sets. The streets will remain too hot for her li’l feet until well after nightfall.

So it looks like our next Doggywalk will be put off until dawn tomorrow (and not later than that!).

She doesn’t seem to mind: she’s conkered out on the sack just now. Canine response to heat, I reckon.

Y’know…  Phoenix — the Valley of the Sun — never used to be like this. It didn’t get this humid.

Yes, it did rain. But when the air got as wet as it is now, that’s when the rain would coalesce out of the sky. 

No kidding. Back in the day, it never felt as soggy and muggy as Saudi Arabia used to feel. But now? Yeah: for some period during the summer, you’re gonna feel like you were perched on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The joys of urbanization, eh?

And this is what makes me miss the San Francisco Bay Area, where my relatives dwelt before my parents took off for distant parts. Damp? Sure. But damp and hotter than the Hubs? Nope.

Ohhhh how I wanna go home!!
😮

 

Dawgy Walk…Through the Swamp

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Blech! That is hardly an understatement. 6:30 in the morning and it feels like a freakin’ sauna out there! What a horrible day!

It’s 90 degrees in the shade of the back porch. 8:30 a.m.  Truly does feel like a freakin’ SAUNA out there, it’s sooo hot and soooo WET. 

I’ve seen days like this in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia when the air was so wet that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky. Presumably the only reason that isn’t happening now is that we’re not parked on a beach next to the freakin’ Persian Gulf. Yech!!!

But…I’ll bet if we were much closer to the Sea of Cortes, that sky would indeed be spitting rain on our heads.

DXH is in Chicago, for some sort of business meetings. I forgot….and called him as dawn cracked this morning. Thereby interrupting him and annoying him royally.

Jeez. Don’t get old, whatever ya do!!  😮

Don’t have much to do today…I don’t think this is Cleaning Lady Day. If that guess is correct, then there’s no need to race around the house picking up litter.

Hmmmm… Found a roadside doctor practicing next door to the Albertson’s shopping center. I’m thinking I should try to build a doctor-patient relationship with the guy…not because he seems so wonderful, but because he’s so convenient. The Mayo, where our docs practice, is a good hour’s drive from here. I can walk to this guy’s office. So it would be good to have him on the string for ailments that would benefit from a doctor’s attention but that clearly are not terminal….

That would help a lot.

The MayoDocs are great when you have something wrong that’s real and that’s significant. But driving to the other side of Timbuktu to have every little sniffle checked? Not so much. 

This is one of the great things about living in the thick of a major metropolitan area: you don’t HAVE to drive from pillar to post to get things done. In fact, just now I don’t have to drive anywhere: everything I need and do is within walking distance. Failing that, though, we have an Uber driver living across the street — one of half a dozen who inhabit the ‘Hood. I can hire him to schlep me around the Valley.

I’m pretty sure I can get this new doc to overrule the Mayo quacks’ opinion that oh dear oh dear I mustn’t be driving. But the truth is, I’m not sure I want to be bothered. The main thing just now is that I need the driver’s license to serve as identification. Driving per se is beside the point. Cashing a check is the point.

So I need New Quack to help me retrieve my driver’s license. If he will.

😀

Gosh, I’m tired of Stupid Stuff. 

Does it not occur to you that Stupid Stuff ebbs and flows like the tide?

For a nice long time, things flow smoothly and calmly and sanely. And then all of a sudden a freakin’ FLOOD of Stupid Stuff pours down on you like an ocean wave? Just now, we’re definitely at high-tide. I feel like I’m drowning in Stupid Stuff!

And frankly, wayyyyy too much of it is emanating from those suckers at the Mayo: the ones who listen to my son bellyaching about me but never think to ask me about the cause of the bellyaching.

That, I think, is why I need to hire on some docs who a) don’t know me; b) don’t know my son; and c) have heard nothing from the opinionated set at the Mayo Clinic. Let them hear me whine about my current “symptom,” let them examine me, and let them form their own conclusions about what, if anything, ails me.

Movin’ On…if it can be called moving…

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LOL! Okay, so the magnificent stabs of pain that visited the lame hip a little earlier today have pretty well settled down. What kicked it up, I have NO idea.

Nor do have I a clue what made it settle down. All I know just now is that at the moment it hurts, but it sure doesn’t hurt like it did.

Don’t get any optimistic ideas that “doesn’t hurt like it did” means it’s gonna go away. Because that ain’t how this thing has been working. Yeah: it comes and goes. It’ll hurt like Hell. Then for no obvious reason the pain will recede: not gone, but tolerable. Then a few hours later — again for no obvious reason: hurts like Hell again.

No clue what makes it flare up. No clue what makes it settle down. All I know is that it comes and goes. But never…ever…goes AWAY.

Well..what ELSE I know is…

* I’m tired of hurting
*I’m tired of listening to my ears whistling
* I’m tired of my yard being a mess because it hurts too much to clean things up
* I’m tired of my house being a mess because it hurts too much to drag stuff around.
* I’m tired of looking at the dorked up dining-room chair cushions, a mess because it hurts too much to take the chairs apart and try to fix said mess
* I’m damn tired of knowing that when I get up from this chair it’s gonna hurt like Hell

STOP THE WORLD! I WANNA GET OFF!!

{Chortle!} Actually, stopping the world may not help. We’re told that the accursed peripheral neuropathy can persist for weeks, if not months. Ohhhhhh well…..