Coffee heat rising

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!!

Rainy-Day Monday

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About as un-Arizona a day as you can get!

😀

DepositPhoto; Rainy Weather © dnaumoidThe sky is gray, a soft wind is blowing, and it looks for all the universe like rain is y-cumin’ in. Wunderground says it’s 76º out there, cloudy, with 100% chance of rain.

Ya don’t say, Jose?

Seriously, it’s quite a beautiful day, in its style. Far as I can tell by the calendar, my son has NOT slated me to trudge to the Mayo today. Thank the heavens!

Also in the Thankful department, apparently no babysitter is scheduled to come here and supervise my every living, breathing moment. No one has showed up at the door, anyway.

C-R-R-R-A-A-A-A-C-K!
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE… 

Eeek!  What IS God trying to say to us?

My goodness, what strange weather. Just now it’s raining…sorta. Not, for sure, in the torrents one would expect to accompany a symphony of blasting thunder. But…water falling out of the sky is always a remarkable event, here in lovely uptown Arizona.

Well…I sure am glad M’jito and I are not on the road, traipsing traipsing traipsing to the Mayo Clinic on the far east side. I do hate that drive! Even when someone else is behind the steering wheel. Endless awful traffic.

Oh, my! Now we’re getting a wonderful TORRENT of rain pouring straight out of the sky. Wind, to the extent that there was any, has quit, and so the water is dropping into the yard and the pool, unmolested.

After 10 a.m. None of the babysitters my son has hired to ride herd on me have shown up. Thank the heavens!

Probably thank the rainy heavens… Driving through the traffic from those dreary eastside commuter suburbs where the women live is no fun under the best of circumstances. And believe me: you do NOT want to do that under pouring rain and blasting thunder.

Hmmm…a check of the storage cabinets and shelves shows we have plenty of food — dog & human — for the next several days. So we absolutely positively do NOT have to go out in that weather. 😀

Whenever it settles down, I’ll make a run on the Hispanic market to the north of us — a short, easy walk — and stock up on some more easily stored chow.

And Ruby and I should be set!

Dispatch from Torture Central

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Here we are at the Mayo Clinic again, whereinat for me to spend another afternoon with another damned needle in my arm.

M’jito, ever empathetic, has lost patience with my looniness and stalked out of the torture room, presumably to lurk in the waiting area…as far from his bi*ch mother as he can get. Comforting as Hell, eh?

😀

Even though this procedure is painless, I can’t even begin to describe how much I hate it. And, when I venture to think about it, how pointless it seems.

Forgodsake, I’m 81 years old. Ten of those years were spent in a Third-World country, during a time when sanitation was a foreign word. Thanks to flurries of immunizations, I got out of there without contracting a serious disease. My mother nearly died of the amoebic dysentery she caught; difficult to treat in those days…but…it did get her and her little girl out of that Hellish place.

So I don’t have that many years left. Probably no more than I would have if I were left alone to moulder away and die in peace. Sometimes I think I should get on a horse and ride off into the desert. Never to come back. Why spend any part of those years in a hospital being tortured?

Or annoying my poor son to the point where he can’t stay in the same room with me.

What, really, IS the point of staying on this earthly plane after you reach 80 or so?

None, I think.

None.