Coffee heat rising

Slow Morning in Citrus Central

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Loafing my way through the morning… 😀  The miniature killer watchdog has dragged me around the park and through the neighborhood. We have chowed down. And now we loaf.

One of the nicest things about loafing, here at the Funny Farm, IS the Funny Farm. It’s such a pleasant place to sit around doing as little as possible.

Just now the automated watering system is drenching the decorative plants and the trees. The automated pool system is running the swimming pool’s sparkling water through a set of filters. The Human is considering whether to get off its duff and walk over to the Sprouts, or whether ’tis better to sit around munching chocolate chips and guzzling coffee. The Dawg is busy guarding the backyard.

To my mind, the biggest issue or problem with staying in your freestanding home into (and with any luck, through) your dotage is having to wrangle the hired help. Most are honest & hard-working, but some leave something to be desired in those categories.

The citrus trees, for example, need to be pruned. Since the beloved Gerardo hasn’t done that job so far this year, I’m assuming either he doesn’t want to do it or he doesn’t know how.

But that’s a generous assumption: OF COURSE he knows how to prune the damn citrus. He’s been working here, in darkest Citrus Central, for years. That he hasn’t done the job by now means he doesn’t want to be bothered. Since we know he surely does know how to do the job, we also know he doesn’t wanna do the job.

And that means I’ll have to track down some new victim to do the job. And in the department of don’t wanna, that one ranks high.

Guess I should annoy him by phoning and asking if he’ll come back.

But…ugh! Not now.

Beautiful Dog-&-Human Night

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Ruby the Corgi dragged her Human all over the north part of the neighborhood this evening. And what a beautiful evening it is! Really one of those incredible Arizona nights…just gorgeous.

We walked northward, past my old Arizona Highways colleague’s place: Jerry Jacka, one of the great landscape photographers of the Southwest. Then up past our now-absent friend Marge’s house.

She, we assume, must either have passed or have been consigned to The Beatitudes, a skin-crawling prison for the elderly. She appeared to be well into her 80s…maybe even older than that.

Her house — a classic Southern-California style 1970s ranch house — has been swarming with workmen. It’ll be interesting to see what transpires…

She told me she wanted to leave it to her son, who lives out of state. She wanted him to have it as an outpost to use when he’s here on business, which is apparently every now and then.

Our grown kids, though, usually do NOT have the same ideas about large and expensive investments as we do. My guess is, he’s cleaning it up and fancying it up so he can put it on the market.

It’s really not in an ideal location: only a block or two south of Main Drag North, one of the most hectic surface streets in the city. When you live next to a busy road like that, you get used to the racket from the traffic. But…whaddaya bet Sonny hasn’t done any such thing? He probably thinks it’s a zoo up there, and has no intention of hanging onto a piece of real estate pasted to the edge of that unholy road.

Ohhh well. Nothing stays the same, eh?

 

A Day Not QUITE from Hell…

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But close. Very close. 

Why?

Well…where on earth to start?

Let’s start in the neighborhood computer store.

My laptop crapped out; needed the attention of a computer tech.

My son has my car, so I can’t drive the computer across the city to the Best Buy, where I have a warranty that covers it.

Shee-ut. So I pick up the gadget and hike the six blocks to the neighborhood computer store, down at the corner of Main Drag South and Conduit of Blight. Haul it in. Explain the problem. “Oh…” says the ninny at the service desk, “We don’t fix that issue.”

Wonnerful. I do have a warranty at Best Buy. But taking the machine to that august computer dealer entails a half-hour or forty-minute drive through nauseating traffic, plus a good 15 or 20 minutes of standing in line. “Know anyone nearby who can work on it?”

She sends me across the street to the electronics store over there.

Hike across six lanes of homicidal traffic. Stand in line stand in line stand in line stand…

“I dunno what the problem might be. You need to take it down to the Best Buy.”

Yeah: the one I just passed over because I didn’t want to make the half-hour drive in each direction.

Hike back into the parking lot, mightily pi$$ed.  A military jet ROARS over, emitting a terrifying racket.

Reminds me of how much I hated living in Sun City, just down the road from Luke Air Force Base, which sent its ROARING jets over our homes every morning starting at about 6 a.m., and serenaded us for the rest of the day.

That reminded me of Sun City’s other horrors, not the least of which was its incompetent, misogynistic doctors. The bastards who made my mother’s final suffering ten times worse than it had to be.

Or maybe a hundred times worse. When does stupidity morph into outright evil, anyway?

By now, as you may have intuited, I was having a just LOVELY day.

Circled back to the Funny Farm. 

Here at the house, I stumbled across an ancient computer power cord. And LO! The damn thing fits in the laptop’s plugs!!!

We’re now attached to an outlet, and it looks like the critter is going to keep on working. Apparently the problem, such as it was, had to do with the present power cord, which must have broken or worn out.

Do miracles ever stop?

* The palms of the hands are still buzzing.
* The upper gums over the front teeth: still buzzing.
* The soles of the feet: still buzzing.
* The ears whistling at high volume, nonstop.

Somehow, none o’ that seems to matter much.

* Computer breakdown
* Idiots in computer store
* Roaring jet
* Sun City memories & horrors
* Persistent peripheral neuropathy

WHAT a wonnerful day!!!!

Scam-a-Bat

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My poor son was mightily peeved this morning when I interrupted his work by calling him to ask if some marvel of an offer that arrived in the mail was, as suspected, a scam.

Yes. Of course it’s a scam. Quit breaking into my workday with that stuff!

Uh  huh.

Well, what happens when you’re old is that it gets harder and harder for you to distinguish the Fake from the Real. That’s even when you know very well that about every third person you encounter wants to rip you off. 

Yes. Even when you know that 99% of what comes in the mail is a scam. Yes. Even now that virtually every phone call comes from a crook. I no longer even answer the phone. Leave me a message, and maybe I’ll call you back. If I know you personally…

Even ordinary adults in their working years get quite enough nuisance calls! Now add to that the calls for help from elder relatives who have been pestered by this, that, or the other scammer, and you get…overwhelming!

Today I got a snail-mail from what looked like a legitimate creditor telling me that I’d better pay up some late bill or it would be off to jail for me, by golly!

Uh huh.

Well, on some level I knew that was BS, because I don’t buy things on time. If  can’t afford to pay for it now, I don’t get it.

But that’s not 100%. Yes, of  course I do have some creditors. Don’t we all?

Well…yeah. That’s what the scammers are counting on.

My son was enraged when I broke into his work morning to ask if today’s telephoned demand for money was something real…or what. This made me feel like a sh!t, of course. But…what would I have felt like if I’d fallen for the caller’s scam?

Honestly. I think a person could make a living by hiring out to answer people’s phones and screen the incoming trash. No kidding: at this point, I would seriously consider hiring someone to answer my calls. MOST of the calls I get these days are hustles and scams. Hiring someone to screen incoming would relieve me of a fair amount of tooth-grinding!

Same with the mail. It’s getting to the point where I won’t open an envelope unless I recognize the sender’s name & address. ANY envelope. But that means that occasionally someone I do business with is not gonna be able to reach me by snail-mail. Or by phone. In other words: they can’t reach me at all. 

Probably the trick to that would be to insert some sort of code into your return address.

Jane 324 Doe, Esquire
1234 Erewhon Road
New York, N.Y. 23456

But these edited return addresses would, over time, be collected by the hustlers, so that eventually you would no longer be able to tell the difference between legit correspondence and hustles. And of course, to the extent that such a maneuver works, it will waste your time as you dork around with the coded addresses.

The older you get, the tiresomer it gets!

Thursday Afternoon in October: Phoenix, AZ

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Gawd, is it ever HOT!

Actually, no…it’s not hot out here on the back porch. It’s just stuffy. The air, I think, is slightly damp, despite its cloudless state. And that makes it seem warmer than it is. And kinda uncomfortable.

Just back from a doggy-walk around the park. Traipsing, traipsing…Ruby and I are about the only ones dumb enough to be outside at this time of day: mid-afternoon. We make the circumnavigation — a mile or so — and stumble back to the Funny Farm. Ruby collapses on the bed. The Human flops in an easy chair.

Truly, I do think it’s NOT that hot. But it’s strangely humid and…well…reminiscent of soggy.

Wunderground pegs the local temp at only 80 degrees. Couldn’t have proved that by me! I’d have guessed closer to 90.

Humidity: a mere 24 percent.

Where DOES this place think it is? Saudi Arabia?

Seriously: it does feel vaguely reminiscent of the Persian Gulf, where early of a clear morning, humidity would drip off the eaves like rain. But nothing’s that wonderful.

WhatEVER…it does seem to be skeeter weather. Which is unusual, because Arizona is not a place that fosters the propagation of mosquitos, at least not most of the time.

Aim the table fan at the human and turn its switch to “lift-off” speed. That usually blows the little gals away.

My son still has my car, purloined at his house and locked in his garage. This makes it difficult to chase my fellow homicidal motorists off the road…and also to get groceries in the house. Certainly in this not very balmy weather. If I were ambitious, I’d call the Uber driver who lives across the street and put him up to driving me to a store.

But…

Well… Ambition is not my middle name. Certainly not today! So…we’ll have to scavenge something to eat. And failing that, go on a diet. 😀

Loafing is always better than dieting, eh?

Arrghh! Home Sweet Home?

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Just get yourself settled into the sack. Toss doggy’s Indian blanket atop the human’s bedding. Turn the fan on to get the bedroom air circulating. Pooch has claimed a patch of real estate at the foot of the mattress. Climb under your own covers…

…and…  Yeah.

RRR..rrr…oOAOarrr…rrrrrrr!

Cop copter circling over the roof. Again.

These cop chases have become so commonplace that one barely notices them.

Well. Except insofar as you know you damn well better notice them, at least to the extent of locking all the doors and windows and being sure the phone is on the nightstand next to the bed and fully functioning. Might be good to have the pistol next to the phone, too….

Occasionally I think the hound and I should move to some quieter part of the Valley, where we’re less likely to be buzzed by cops chasing perps.

But…but…where would that be? 

The crime levels in the lovely Valley of the Sun seem to be pretty constant, wherever you are. I think some walled condo developments tend to repel the rampaging perps. But by and large, wherever you are, you’re gonna have cops’ copters buzzing your house and criminals bouncing around the place.

***

Hmmmm… Our fellas have roamed off. Either they caught the perps forthwith, or whoever they were chasing got away.

Naturally, Ruby t..a..a..a..k…e..s  her fine time to do her Thing.

Hurry up, Ruby! 

sniff sniff sniff sniff…

RUUBEEE! 

RROAOARRR  They’re b-a-a-c-k!

sniff sniff sniff sniff…

GAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

Finally Ruby does her job and we dart back inside the house, having missed an encounter with a fleeing burglar.

Lock the doors. Retreat to the bedroom.

Why, again, are we living in this garden spot?????