Off the Deep End

Phase one of my beautification of Casa de Alan is complete. The entire house has been painted and on New Year's Day I started on the swimming pool. What I needed to do was drain the pool, patch up the rough areas, and then paint it with a high quality swimming pool paint. Early Friday morning I dropped a sump pump into the deep end of the pool, ran a hose out to the street, and turned it on. For three days I pumped the water out of that swimming pool. For three days expensive water that I have to replace when I am done, ran down the driveway and into the sewer. Literally, I was flushing cash down the drain. Draining a swimming pool, like filling it, is painfully slow. I watched as the water level dropped about an inch per hour. That's a six foot deep swimming pool, which means a lot of pumping. Finally, yesterday, I got the water level down to the point where the pump would not work anymore, and removed the rest of the water with a mop and bucket. Now I could get to work. First thing, patching those rough areas with patching compound. That was kind of fun, like spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread. When I was done, I stepped back and admired my work. Good enough, so I went in the house and watched a little football while it dried out. That's when I heard all the commotion outside. That's when I noticed that the sky had turned very dark. Yes, that is when the skies opened up and a couple of inches of rain fell in buckets out of that darkened sky. I now have more water in the swimming pool than I had at sunrise on Sunday. Less than a half an inch of rain translated into two feet of water in the pool. Oh, and all that  patchwork I did, has to be redone.

I remember when I was shopping for a new home twenty three years ago. On my must have list was a swimming pool. I was young and thought that there was nothing better than being able to step out into my back yard and jump into my very own pool. I was right about that... for a couple of years. Then the shine wore off that glittering blue gem. Truly, I could dig a hole in the ground, take thousands of dollars and just bury it right there. I'd get just as much pleasure from that as I do from this goddamned, concrete blood sucker out there.