Purgatory comes early to Phoenix

Fuuuuuuuuuuckkkk …

was my response to today’s headliner:

Excessive Heat wave starts tomorrow.

Temps from 109 to 112 (42.7-44.4 C) for the coming week.

Pretty fucking miserable. That’s not the worst of it.

Heat this intense typically settles here in late June or July. 

For the record, it’s May 26.

Average temp this time of year is about 98 degrees (36.6 C).

We’re 1 to 1.5 months into Purgatory prematurely. Early Merry Christmas to us. Snark.

Records are poised to be shattered.

• Phoenix has never had more than 2 days of 110+ degrees (43.3+ C) in May. About to become 4.
• This will be the longest stretch of such heat ever recorded in May.

“Doesn’t mean that the whole summer is going to be hot,” says a spokesman at the Phoenix weather service.

He’s delusional. Should find a new job like most forecasters.

He did strike an “optimistic note.” Temps “do show a little bit of a cool-down by the middle of next week, and by cool-down I mean maybe closer to 100 degrees.” (37.7 C)

Big whoop. Still too hot and above the norm.

Grim Graphic

This summer’s gonna be BRUTAL, worse than even last year’s, and drier, absent seasonal monsoons,” I’ve been predicting since December. Never been wrong.

Why the weather service doesn’t hire me is their loss given its laughable track record.

Anyhow, southern Arizona is about to Bake Big Time.

Media’s flooded with announcements, warnings and instructions on how to survive. (Among other risks, heat kills, you know, and southern Arizona knows all too well.)

• Drink extra water
• Dress appropriately
• Don’t leave pets or children in the car
• Minimize outdoor activities

Uh, most people can figure this out. Heat has a way of informing our innate responses.

Like Snow Country. Does anyone really need to be instructed to wear gloves, hats and heavy coats?!

Today, May 26, was 103 (39.4 C) — humidity 5% so bone dry. Also a record for the date and among the many triple-digit days we’ve had in 2020.

Despite the climate change (i.e., increased dangerously excessive heat, heat arriving earlier and leaving later, drought), people are still moving here in DROVES. ESPECIALLY Californians, ugh, fuck them. Phoenix remains the fastest-growing city in the country for the 4th year in a row.

Perhaps another topic another day.

For now, please send sympathy and compassion for us here in the renowned Valley of the Sun. {Name makes it sound nicer than it is.) We’re toast way too early.

Phoenix residents from May to October

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Postcards from Bali: but not in my box

I received a rather large postcard in the mail today.

It wasn’t addressed to me specifically, rather “Resident.” The address and apartment number are mine.

Might’ve been easy to dismiss it, lump it in with the bulk of supermarket ads. But I didn’t.

A photo in the upper left corner caught my eye. I read the card’s content.

Disturbed, I went online. I needed to know more. More than his name, age, height, weight, hair and eye color.

More than his face in his mugshot

More than his address next door.

For being 28, he’d built up a rap sheet. Certainly not the worst around but respectable as a small-potatoes thug. Notable is his investment of time and commitment to criminality: more than 14 years, more than half his life, back to his teens (if not earlier).

His list of infractions in prison is also noteworthy. You get the picture. Not a good dude or desirable neighbor.

All that said, it’s not his lengthy criminality that compelled my google search.

It’s this verbatim from the postcard (identifiers redacted):

“In 2016, Mr. C was convicted of sexual abuse and 3 counts of attempted molestation of a child in X-court. His victims were male and female family members.”

There’s SO much I can wrap my mind around in humanity. Even heinous crimes and serial killers.

This I cannot. Not molestation. And absolutely not molestation of your family.

He went to prison for it when he was 15.

His sentence: 4 years. That’s it.  Plus 3 lifetime terms of probation. Wouldn’t bank on his adherence, if prior parole records are any indication.

He is a level 3 sex offender. Level 3 is the highest.

The postcard from the local police department states that the information is being released pursuant to specific law.

It continues:

“This notification is not intended to increase public fear; rather it is to inform the community of a sex offender living in the city” … toward an informed and safer community.”

I’ve memorized his face and physique not only because he lives next door. See, I often walk past that residence during my evening-into-night walks, when it’s “cooler” here in Phoenix, Arizona. We’re days from 110++ (43.3++ C), redefining outdoor activities.

My immediate area’s pretty ghetto. And while my apartment’s on a busy street, the sidewalk is shadowy, lit dimly if at all. I exercise extreme alertness and awareness of my surroundings — ahead, behind and from all sides.

Hypervigilance, intelligence and a lifetime of traveling alone in the U.S. and abroad have cultivated supreme common sense and street smarts..

I’d have made a fucking great detective/cop!

All said and noted, Mr. C. is an unsavory man. A lifetime as a criminal, in and out of prison, not a neighbor I’d choose.

I “get” some of his crimes.

But I cannot cannot cannot get molesting. Or trying to with children. In your own family.

Motherfucker can go to hell.

I’ve Flipped for Flippi!

Vornado fans. I’m a big fan — shameless word play.

Their engineering design is so thought out and cool — no word play intended.

Their fan base — ack! not again! totally unintended — is passionate about their many products. Vornado’s home.

Worth checking out the design. Blew me away — ack! enough already! One of many vids here.

Videos and research convinced me to purchase the novel Vornado 279 fan at Costco last summer. Could not be happier! It’s a keeper!

So impressed was I by its power to circulate air and cool a room (a challenge in Arizona inferno) and small footprint that I’m a now a Vornado loyalist and unlikely to purchase any other brand.

Enter Flippi.

Not to be confused with Flipper, the famous dolphin. What I’d give to be at a beach!!

I stumbled upon this lil’ gem at Costco Sunday.

Flippi desktop fan by Vornado. Coffee cup not included.

Serendipity.

I’d been mulling how to move – remove hot air from my shower area — in a confined back corner with zero air circulation and worthless tiny ceiling “fan.”

ANYTHING to help alleviate this Phoenix, Arizona heat — now and certainly as we move into months of air-conditioner and fan use 24-7.

The baby Vornado fan. Perfect solution!

Turns out to have many more uses than originally intended.

Take my patio.

On second thought don’t you dare!

Love my lil’ patio! One day it’ll make the blog, this simple unadorned humble patch of concrete with weathered wooden rails painted brown.

Only some apartments in this huge complex have patios. “It costs extra,” management informed during the tour.

A no-brainer. “I’ll pay it,” I replied without hesitation.

Of late – especially with this stupid lockdown — I’m spending most of my time on the patio: while I still can. While weather permits.

It’s a “chill” 102 (38.8 C) today, May 5.

Quite soon it’ll tap 110 degrees (43.3 C), then 115-120 (46.1-48.8 C), where it’ll remain for months, forcing us into indoor lockdowns.

If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.

The mountain be mobile.

For Flippi is so mobile … lightweight … versatile!

It moves as I move through my space.

It travels from a spot next to me in my beach chair on the patio, delivering a small gentle breeze in otherwise dead-air Phoenix …

to the floor next to my yoga mat …

to the kitchen counter next to my papasan chair …

to the vanity by the shower room to move trapped hot air and maximize air-conditioning.

So cool!

Coolest is the versatility packed in lil’ Flippi!

• An adjustable tilt head — maximizing Vornado’s signature air circulation
• A base that swivels or stays still
• Two controls for low or high air flow
• UBER quiet!

Magnificent! Tough to achieve in a small unit — we’ve all heard those high-pitched whines. Ear-bleeders. Can’t use it.

Quiet operation is a deal-breaker. Because I’ve got human dog ears. A gift and a curse like most gifts. I also suffer with misophonia and audio-sensitive migraines. So for this alien / freak, Flippi passes muster.

All these breezy perks for about $20 ($28 CAD) at Costco!

Since discovered oodles of rave reviews (unsurprisingly) on Amazon and priced at Costco’s. Sweet!

https://www.amazon.com/Vornado-Flippi-Personal-Circulator-Midnight/dp/B000YKC0UY

Given dual challenges in my domicile and out in the desert, I must say as a hard-core loyal Costco customer for some 18 years across state lines is that this surprise find is among the finest!

Vornado ist wunderbar!

I’ve flipped for Flippi!

(p.s. review is wholly my own; the reward is in in deserved public rave about product & company)

May Day, mom & merrymaking

She’d collect them from the big yard. Geraniums. Red, pink, yellow. Roses perhaps too.

She’d fashion sheets of white paper — construction perhaps? — into cones. Tape the edges.

To each cone she’d attach paper handles. I think. Memory’s unclear. The white cones are certain.

And into each cone she’d insert bright colored blooms. She crafted about a dozen. 

Then she’d hand them to my sister and me to distribute to the neighbors on the hill.

We lived on a hill. A big hill it seemed to our child eyes and legs. The homes were large, too the distance between each.

Traipsing through the hill was a workout, even to strong agile energetic bodies. Some sections were rather steep. All were winding.

Whether we rang each doorbell for personal delivery I can’t recall. It’s also possible that we covertly hung cones on the doorknobs and scuttled away in the not-so-secrecy of broad daylight.

Either delivery system, the outcome was unchanged.

A white cone bursting with colorful blooms. A lil’ something special from Santa some 7-1/2 months early.

Everyone on the hill knew one another.

Times have certainly changed. Distrust and suspicion in response to a knock on a door have replaced a welcome and gladness.

Would the enclave on the hill exist today? I’d like to think so.

The wisened self says nuh.

“You can’t go home again” is absolutely true. It is always best to leave memories intact. Even if they be hazy, weathered or sent somewhat adrift by the passage of time and aging.

My relationship with my mother was a horror, a living nightmare that at 63 I’ve yet to live down or through with any true full healing.

Through that blackness and destructiveness (hers), I saw still who she was and her positive qualities.

May Day was made for my mother — or she for it.

She genuinely loved clipping the geraniums — plentiful on our large lot. Constructing cones. Then having her two girls hoof from home to home on the hill.

It suited her.

Suited her playfulness. Her childlike qualities. Her taste for whimsy. Her marvelous gift at delivering surprises and delight.

Flowers at your door.

Delivered by FTD faeries. 

Mom made May Day memorable and merry.

For years, years and years, every May 1 is fondly remembered my mother.

Wherever she be on the other side, there appears a surreptitious arrangement on her front door out of thin air: