Wow! What an afternoon!
M’jito, my wonderful son, kindly took his whole day off work to schlep me out to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, there to enjoy a whole series of annoying, time-consuming tests. This journey seriously did consume the entire day!
No kidding. An hour to drive out there. The whole damn day sitting around there, waiting, talking to people, being subjected to tests, sitting around waiting some more…on and on. Then OVER an hour to drive back into town through the unholy rush-hour traffic.
My GAWD!!! You have never seen such ungodly traffic as the 
legions westbound out of Scottsdale! Just a fukkin’ horror show!
Workin’-class folks here in the Valley of the We-Do-Mean-Sun by and large live in the West Valley. Decently paying businesses hold forth in the easterly and north-easterly regions: Scottsdale and the East Valley. Result: as in hideous Southern California, thousands of commuters trudge across the city over packed, hot, ugly freeways. And what a horrible evening drive that makes, starting along about 4:00 p.m.
At least it wasn’t unduly hot this afternoon. Another two months, and the drive would have been splendidly hellish.
Ohhh well. Now I’m home, and (since I’ve heard nothing to the contrary) he presumably is home.
What.
A.
Place.
And this is why I daydream of moving to Prescott or the Oro Valley. He daydreams of moving to Grand Junction, Colorado, where his eccentric paternal grandmother lived, as did her extraordinarily obnoxious husband until he ran off with a woman who could put up with his toxic personality. Moi…I have too many negative memories of DXH’s dear mother (whose personality was not lacking in a degree of toxicity) to go back to that place — ever again — and M’jito knows that.
And I suspect that like me, he may regard one of the midsize towns/cities in Arizona as an acceptable substitute.
I would move to Prescott in a minute.
Same for Sedona.
Same for Oro Valley.
Some friends took off for Payson to spend their retirement in an extraordinarily beautiful home in the forest.
So…Payson? Maybe, only because my friends are up there. But probably not: it’s too small, too remote. You have to drive all the way down into the Valley to go to a decent doctor. Or to go to a Costco. Or to enjoy any sort of cultural event this side of a rodeo.
Truth to tell, if I had my preference, I’d probably move to Carefree (north of town: $$$$), Cave Creek (on the road to Carefeee: almost affordable), or Wickenburg (out in the desert west of town).
Or…or…San Francisco, by damn!
It’s 18 minutes after 5:00 p.m. here in the Funny Farm’s back yard. Helicopter after helicopter has flown over. The roar of passenger jets emanates from Sky Harbor airport, miles from here.
Ohhhh well. I can’t complain: At least I don’t have to deal with that unholy traffic morning and evening, five unholy days a week.
But…if I still had to work, you can be sure I wouldn’t live in Phoenix.