It’s gettin’ mighty cold out there! And dark. Here in the middle of the afternoon, all the lights in the room are burning against the twilight gloom that seeps in through the windows.
A big cold front has lurched in from the West Coast. We’re supposed to see rain all day today, tonight, and tomorrow and then, as is common when a winter storm’s cloud cover lifts, a hard freeze. Thursday and Friday temps will drop into the low 20s, once again killing every plant in Phoenix that still possesses a leaf.
I’ve hauled in every potted plant I could pick up or shove onto the dolly. The dining room and family room are populated with them. They’re not pleased with me for cheating them of their chance to soak up some unsalted, unchlorinated water, which is what falls out of our skies, so much superior to what barfs out of the tap. But it will rain again. This freeze will happen only once in the next four or five years. They will be glad to spend the next few nights indoors, those plants.
Gerardo came by with his 16-year-old son, one of those adolescents who starts to look like a young man before he can lift a can of beer to celebrate his new mustache. Wrestled the two surviving strings of old incandescent Christmas lights into the lime tree, in hopes of fending off a repeat of the dieback the last freeze dealt it three or four years ago. There really aren’t enough lights to do much good. We hung a shop light up in the middle of the canopy, too. Hope these will emanate enough heat to save most of the tree.
***
My neighbor Terri got a new air conditioner today. The AC dudes spent a third of the day, most of it in cold, pouring rain, wrestling the old unit off her roof and wrestling a new one on. It possesses a sterling new quality: QUIET! Yes. Last time I looked out there, it was humming softly to itself: quieter right outside my beloved west deck (the Leafy Bower) than the swimming pool motor. This is nice, very nice: in the past when Terri’s AC unit came on, the racket was enough to drive one inside. I hope it saves her as much on her bills as it does in noise relief!
***
Gerardo looked askance at the AC dudes. He refused to leave until he saw that I’d locked the security door on the garage’s west side, which the AC dudes could observe in action all the time he and his son were fooling around out there. {sigh} I’m afraid he’s becoming Americanized.
Gerardo emanates decency. He’s one of those men who revives your confidence in the human race. If you’ve ever traveled deep into Mexico, you’ve met a number of men and women like him: gracious, polite, and genuinely kind. I imagine when you live in a small village, it’s easy to see who’s morally challenged, and so one probably aspires to common decency. Whatever the cultural impetus, it seems to work. Gerardo makes me want to move to the Yucatán, whence he came.
When I first met Gerardo some years ago, he seemed preternaturally trusting. Naive, some of us might say. But alas, Candide takes instruction well, and now, even though with his friends he’s still his Old-World self, he doesn’t waste his goodwill on everyone anymore.
***
As we were untangling the strings of lights I’d heedlessly tossed into a box last winter, the mailman walked into the garage to deliver the first of the two pair of tights I’d bought to go with a couple of the tops captured in Monday’s bargain-hunting frenzy. These were the black Danskins.
They look great with the white Nygård tunic bearing the gaudy peony (or whatever it is) and good enough for government work with the long black knit top. The latter, I think, will be mostly for around-the-house; the former certainly fine for the grocery store and waypoints. But oh! They are so comfortable! Really, I didn’t want to take them off.
The style of wearing tights under a tunic, long a fatlady strategy, is probably passé—my daughter-in-sin, a chronic yo-yo dieter, used to affect this combination when she was feeling tubby. But gosh. Who cares? It makes me drop about 20 visual pounds! It’s far more comfortable than my usual uniform of Costco jeans and knit tops. And…mirabilis! These things don’t have to be ironed!
Quite a few other tunic-length tops reside in the closet, begging to be worn with them.
***
The American Express bill arrived too, along with the tights. Holy mackerel: $2,330!
What on earth happened to my $800 budget?
Well, $520 or so of that was paid by M’hijito, who bought a new dryer at Sears. We charged it on my card so I could get the AMEX kickback, and he instantly wrote me a check to cover it.
Then there was the down payment on the ottoman I’ve coveted at Crate & Barrel, which I planned to pay from diddle-it-away savings.
And the $450 for 2011 Delta Dental coverage. I have got to get my teeth cleaned! Been afraid to set foot in a dental office since my coverage lapsed last May. And I suspect I need at least two new crowns. There’s a waiting period…hope I can last through it! La Maya has a dentist whom she describes as the (hunky!) Dentist from Heaven, so as soon as his office opens after the New Year, I’ll try to get in.
The Times double-charged me again this month, one of those habits of hard-copy periodicals that tends to drive one away from subscriptions. Amazingly, they always contrive to do this in months when I’m already overcharged.
And, since none of this explains a $1,500 budget overrun, this was definitely an overcharge month!
At I Pick Up Pennies, Abigail describes a kind of spending exhaustion. That’s exactly how I’m feeling, even though most of this month’s outrageous expenditures were really not extravagances but things that were truly needed. I feel the same way: would like to spend the next month in full frugal mode. Hold the bills, please!
😀
from American Apparel, which should look awesome under the wild-looking Nygård thing with the fantastic Vera-like flower on the front—all very Finnish and 
