Revisiting My Florida Swimming Pool

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

That Sinking Feeling

It started a couple of months ago with a few air bubbles in the clean water return, I just figured the trap at the pool filter had a small leak. After checking out the trap and filter, I just chalked it up to old age. After all, my swimming pool is at least forty five years old. Then this past Thursday night I noticed the water level had dropped about two inches, and on Friday morning, another one inch.
It is the quintessential symbol of Florida living, the swimming pool in the back yard, or as I call it, the money hole. It costs money to put water into it, it costs money for all the chemicals. When any of the mechanicals break, your budget breaks along with it. Most people have a pool service to clean their pool, at about eighty dollars a month. Besides all those expenses, you have the electric bill. My pool uses about one hundred dollars worth of electricity per month. Anyway, it appears that there might be a leak somewhere in the pool. Upon closer inspection at the far end of the pool, an area I don't venture out to very often, I have noticed that small cracks in the deck have now become large cracks. I have also noticed the definite sound of water sloshing under the concrete. This creates sloshing of acid in my stomach, so I have called a company that finds pool leaks and fixes them. This morning the man from Florida Leak Locators, located my leak, or should I say leaks, and it is every bit as bad as I thought. He informed me that I need my pool re-piped. This involves chopping two holes in the pool from the inside, replacing the pipes, and them rebuilding the wall of the pool. He didn't have an immediate estimate, but his ballpark figure was more than two thousand dollars. I do have another option, and it really is tempting. Chop out the bottom of the pool, fill the entire thing in with soil, and plant a nice garden. For all I would be saving in pool expenses, I could hire a garden maintenance man for a fraction of that.

It's Over, It's Finally Over....

 No, not the Covid19. Winter, winter is over.

Such a beautiful day yesterday that right after breakfast I went out and mowed the lawn. Don't you love the smell of fresh mowed grass? It brings back memories of childhood, when Dad would be out in the yard with that old manual push mower on a Saturday morning. I would hear the clattering of the mower and cursing, and I knew Dad was out there. If he had my older brother out there doing the mowing, you didn't hear cursing because my older brother was a saint. I didn't have to worry about doing that chore for years. Not until Dad decided I was old enough and tall enough to reach the handle on that lawn mower. Which was around five years old. Anyway, yesterday was the first mowing of the yard for the year 2020, and that means winter is truly gone. After cutting the grass, I brought all the plants I started in the basement outside and put them on the picnic table. I have tall marigolds, short marigolds, and petunias that I plan to put in today. Over along the back of the house I turned the soil, added some new soil, and sowed some wildflower seeds. I did that last year and it looked great. Unfortunately, this was the most physical labor I have done in about four months and my back is killing me. So I do plan to join Scout in laying around and doing nothing later today.

Mark Finds a Turd

In April of 2004 Mark and I purchased a business called ‘The Hot Dog House’ in Oakland Park, Florida. I had run the numbers and was sure we could make it work. The day we took over the business I was very happy because we made more money than the seller said she ever made in one day. The deal was, she would stay and help us for the first week while we learned how to run a hot dog stand. The second day was quite different. We didn’t even clear $100, and the seller had disappeared never to be seen again. I’m pretty sure that the day before she had told every one of her friends to show up and buy a hot dog.

Mark has always had a hard time dealing with disasters, calamities, and anything out of the ordinary. ‘The Hot Dog House’, which we renamed ‘Big City Dogs’, was run on a day to day basis by Mark while I continued in my regular job. If Mark had a problem he would call me. My phone would ring and a hysterical voice on the other end would be screaming at me. No hello or 'It's me, Mark', just screaming. There was a problem and Mark's hair was on fire. It didn’t matter where I was, I had to find a way to get over there and fix things, which usually turned out to be nothing more than a blown circuit breaker. Mark also had a running battle with the homeless street people. They seemed to think our hot dog stand was a homeless shelter. The place was laid out with no inside dining, all seating was at concrete picnic tables around the front and side of the building. Every morning it looked like there had been a big homeless beer and wine party at ‘Big City Dogs’. There would be nasty old clothes strewn about and shopping carts full of junk. Mark would open up in the morning and within ten minutes there would be a guy taking a sponge bath in the washroom. The worst of it was the smell of urine. Apparently homeless parties included lots of urinating. We had to wash the place down every day with bleach.
One day while I was working at my hospital job, my phone rang. It was Mark. "I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE! I’M LEAVING AND GOING HOME! THEY SHIT ON THE TABLES!" (followed by the sound of gagging). By the time I got there he was gone. He had left our one employee alone to run the business. Mark has a very weak stomach, and can’t even stand to see a cat cough up a fur ball without gagging and puking. I went around to clean up the mess, and there it was. One single turd. Not even a large turd. It was about the size of a medium dog turd and I washed it off the table with the hose in seconds. This was not how I had envisioned my life as a hot dog tycoon.

Alan and the Angry Shopper

Re-enactment

Before I get into the confrontation at the Jewel Grocery Store yesterday, let me ask again. What the hell were all these people who have bought up every last ounce of cleaning supplies, doing before this whole virus scare? Did they live in filth? Anyway, once a week I venture out to get supplies and groceries. Lucky for me I did the senior hours thing yesterday before the meat hoarders showed up. So I got two steaks, some chicken, and a nice salmon. However, when I turned down the cleaning supplies aisle it was nearly stripped bare. Each week for the last month or more, Mark has been putting Clorox wipes, Lysol spray, and foaming hand soap on his list for me to buy. Mark is very optimistic. So as I slowly moved down that aisle hoping to find at least one of the things on Mark's list, I noticed a woman shopping at the far end. She had her face mask on, was wearing latex gloves, and was yelling something. I usually ignore crazy people yelling things. Sort of a reciprocal respect for when people ignore me screaming and cursing in the supermarket. As I got closer to the woman I realized she was zeroing in on me, yelling something at me. Because of the face mask her angry screaming was a little difficult to make out.

"Wonph waph. ymmmph glomom wonph waph."

I tried to ignore her. That's when she threw her hand up as if to stop me, and repeated her indecipherable babble. So I stopped, and she turned her shopping cart to block the aisle, as if I were about to attack her. She was waving her hands and still screaming, so I slowed my advance down the aisle. She momentarily moved her face mask up so I could hear her clearly. In an angry voice she told me, "Turn around. You're going the wrong way."

Well how the hell did she know I was going the wrong way? I knew where the hell I was going.

"One way aisle. You can only go one way.... Look down."

So I looked down and sure enough, there was a sign on the floor that said 'One Way'. However, since I was already a third of the way down the aisle I figured I might as well keep going. That was when she started screaming as if I were Jack the Ripper.

"Get away from me. Go away... Don't come any closer!! "

She had a mask on. I had a mask on. I didn't intend to go down there and breathe on her, but she was clearly out of her mind with fear. So I gave her a dismissive wave of my hand and turned around. Is that how we are now to look at each and every person we come into contact with? As if they were Satan coming for our soul? I don't know if I saw that woman again during my shopping trip. They all looked pretty much the same. A face with a blue mask. What I do know is that it took me twice as long to shop because everything I needed was down a one way aisle, the wrong way.

Heavy Flow

(A story I wrote about eleven years ago, when we still lived in Florida.)

When I was about nine or ten years old I walked into a tree and I believe I broke my nose. Back in those days parents didn't drag you to the doctor for such insignificant injuries as that, so to this day I have what is referred to as a deviated septum. One problem that this has caused is that when the weather is cool and the humidity is low, I get a  bloody nose.

Once again, I am sitting here with a trash basket full of bloody toilet paper and no end in sight for the latest gusher. My usual fix for a bloody nose is Afrin nasal spray. It somehow restricts the blood vessels and stops the bleeding. So far I have squirted about three ounces of the stuff up my nostril, but it hasn't slowed the flow yet and I am starting to feel quite light headed. Usually the Afrin works and I don't have to go through more than one roll of toilet paper. Yes, I have seen a doctor about this problem. Unfortunately, most nose doctors here in South Florida are only interested in cosmetic surgery. If you aren't a fifteen year old Jewish girl from Boca with daddy's credit card in your purse, they just aren't interested in helping you. The doctor I went to just handed me a tube of ointment, told me to dab it in my nose, and sent me on my way.

Bloody noses aren't that bad when you're at home and can attend to them. It's a horrible thing though when you are out having a good time, suddenly you sneeze, and blood starts spewing from your face. One time, while Mark and I were having a pleasant breakfast at a nice little restaurant, I had a fit of sneezing. Blood immediately gushed forth. I hurried to the men's restroom, and tried to stem the flow with little squares of toilet paper and industrial strength paper towels. I ended up having to run through the restaurant, blood running down my shirt, yelling at Mark to pay the bill and meet me at the car. I really wish I could go back and apologize to all the other diners for ruining their breakfast. Maybe next time I'll run to the ladies room. I understand that sometimes they have tampon dispensers in there.

Lines

This is supposed to be three lanes of traffic

Petco has a nice service for these times. I usually buy my dog food online and then go pick it up at their store. For some reason it is much cheaper to buy it online and pick it up than if you just walked in there and picked it off the shelf yourself. Anyway, now they will actually bring it out to your car. You don't even have to go in there. You pull into the parking lot and call the store, then the person working in the store is supposed to bring you your purchase. So I gave it a try. I arrived at the store, parked across from the front door and called.

"I'll pop the trunk and you can just drop the bag of dog food in there." I instructed the nice young person who answered the phone.

"I'm sorry sir, but I have to physically hand it to you."

"Okay, but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of me staying in my car. You know, social distancing and all that?"

"Ummm..... "

"Fine, I'm across from your store in the parking lot."

"Oh, I can't bring it across there to you. Could you back right up to the door?"

I looked at the only parking spot in front of the door. It was barely wide enough for my car, much less for me to get out and take the bag of dog food from her. And I can't blame the other drivers who had parked too close. The lines in the parking lot had probably been painted in 1975. You could barely make them out and people were just parking willy nilly. I don't know what it is about the city of Chicago, but nobody paints lines on the pavement. Not in parking lots, not on the actual streets. On more than one occasion I have almost sideswiped a car because we both thought we were in a lane when neither one of us were. Worst is on Clark/Ashland where in some places the only evidence of lanes are the cracks in the pavement. It would be nice that while nobody is using the streets this month, the city maybe paints a few lines out there. So I backed in between the two cars in front of the Petco Store, and tried to squeeze out of my car without banging my door into the car next to me. As I grunted and groaned, sucking my gut in for more ease of egress, the young Petco employee plopped my bag of dog food in the trunk, said thank you and left.

"You're welcome." I called out as I squeezed back into the car.

Self Loathing

I'm feeling fat. I weighed myself and I am at my upper limit, the most I ever weighed. I blame this self isolating crap for this. Sitting around all day long with not much to do, eating crap food, and taking too many naps. You would think that I would be ready for this, after all I have been basically doing the same thing for the last two years. Every since Mark got too sick to go out or travel much, I have been self isolated. Other than my four hours of bowling on Tuesday nights, and my four hours driving out to see Mom, I was doing nothing. Now those two outlets have been taken away from me. Add to that Mark's recent craving for baked goods. Lately he's had me baking brownies, lemon squares, and whatever the hell else comes in an easy to bake, box mix. Yes, I know. I can spend time cleaning the house, gardening, fixing shit around here. But those naps, they just happen at the oddest times.