Bad news: The pool is still leaking.
Good news: The Pool Guy comes to see us EVERY DAY! And he gets to spend a lot of time IN our pool!
Bad news: He doesn’t seem too happy about it, plus Monkey is very bitter that the Pool Guy is the only person who’s actually been swimming in our pool so far.
Good news: There is not, in fact, a hole in the new pool liner. You know, the SECOND new pool liner.
Bad news: What it SEEMS to be is some poor patching work between the steps and the pool concrete, and the Pool Guy keeps “fixing it,” but we are still losing water.
Good news: We’re currently losing water a lot slower than before. Yay?
Bad news: Apparently the accepted fix for this issue is some kind of putty that looks a lot like the clay you used in your elementary school art classes to make lumps of “sculptures” for your parents. Said putty gets jammed under the trim to the sides of the steps and results in something that looks like our pool was patched by a 6-six-old.
Good news: The putty works, you know, if you have enough of it. I know this because 1) after being puttied (hee! puttied!) twice, the pool is leaking a lot slower than it used to and 2) yesterday the Pool Guy told me that if it continued to lose water, he would come back with more putty (he was all out) and putty the ENTIRE THING.
Bad news: I don’t really know that I want a whole pool full of putty. That seems… messy.
Good news: Pool Guy is coming back today to hopefully do the final fix and then it shouldn’t leak any more, forever and amen.
Bad news: I am not holding my breath about that.
Good news: Otto’s fix of the leaky pool filter worked great, so at least we’re able to circulate the water now and feel reasonably certain that nothing else is wrong.
Bad news: Otto now likes to send me house listings. “THIS ONE DOESN’T HAVE A POOL,” he’ll note, along with the link. I feel like maybe he’s trying to tell me something…?
Good news: In lieu of swimming, my children have managed to keep themselves busy with other activities. Why, just this morning, Chickadee baked cookies for Monkey and his friends, because he has a big D&D session happening tonight and you know, monster-fighting requires cookies.
Bad news: You really do not want to see my kitchen right now. Apparently doing dishes is not part of how they’re keeping busy. WEIRD.
Good news: In addition to giant mound of cookies for the boys, Chickadee told me she was making “a cookie” for herself, as well. She has dubbed it Monster Cookie.
Apparently it’s going to be her new pet. Much better than Phil, right? HAPPY ENDING!
Everything’s happy that ends with cookies. I’m on my way home in 5 minutes to make cookies myself, just to prove it.
Roach or cookie? Oh yeah, I know that answer.
Dude, your kids are cool.
Well of course we are :)
‘So, I have this New Adventure for our Party. It is Inspired by Actual Events in and around our house.”
Orcs keep flowing out of a ground level crypt… we need to staunch the flow. But some evil dude keeps loading the crypt with Orcs… and they keep spilling out. It is causing great havoc with the landowners, and have agreed that Extreme measures.. (thats us) are now needed.
Our Point of Contact for this adventure is a somewhat crazy lady villager who owns the land near this crypt, and sees things ‘flowing’ out of it. She and her minions agree to keep us in provisions as long as we are fighting to finish this job… and reward us handsomely if we succeed. I hear Cookies Of Great Power are involved…
I better stop there and let Monkey finish the narrative…
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Move to a neighborhood that has a community pool! Best pool experience ever unless you like to swim at midnight.
Dude. I would much rather look at Chickadee’s awesome monster cookie than at a pool full of putty. A putty-pool.
Heh, pictured a pool filled with Putties from Seinfeld.
I saw a friend’s photos on Facebook the other day, all of her kids frolicking in their freshly filled backyard pool and felt a fleeting moment of regret that mine were not doing the same – fleeting, because I remembered your pool-related travails. Thank you.
Wow, a literally face-sized cookie! I like it.
I doubt that cookie will last longer than Phil. Of course, she didn’t eat Phil. I hope.
My thoughts exactly!
I love happy endings.
That is a MUCH better pet than Phil. Good job, Chickie ;)
Tell Chickie that her monster cookie is awesome and totally made my day. (I think I see a giant, cracked, lovely smile on that cookie!)
SO much better, Chickadee. I’ve never heard so many pool problems, this after owning a pool for 5 years and living in 2 homes growing up with pools. Either Texas pools are just better, or your house is haunted.
Ah, yes the leaky pool. We had one. We were putting water in everyday. Here is Swamp Land, Texas that is slowly turning into Gobi Desert, Texas because of the drought, it was getting very expensive! So we ended up re-plastering – still with a leak. It was discovered in the piping – UNDER the pea gravel concrete. Ah, yes, the dear money pit!
I am laughing like a 13 year old boy, imagining Monkey dressed as the little Dutch boy, giggling as only a 13 year old boy can at the (to our contemporary ears, inappropriate) phrase you carefully did not use in this post.
And I would like a monster cookie.
My daughter likes to make gingerbread cutout cookies. The first time she did it alone, she took the last bits and rolled them up into a short fat snake. Coiled it up on the cookie sheet so it looked like a piece of poop. It’s now a tradition. Yep, we’re weird.
Monster cookie for the win.
Bye Phil.
I used to play D&D for awhile many many years ago. It ended when I finally figured out they only invited me because I always baked. I ended up dead near the beginning of any game and either ended up reading or . . . more baking.
I am highly impressed that she managed to get that cookie baked evenly. I somehow have a hard time even making little cookies not get burned on the bottom while getting the tops done enough.
A definite need for monster cookies here as I am feeling very sorry for myself (long story).
Your pool problems are the pits (putty pits, obviously!).
If your blog has taught me anything, it is never to have a pool!
Have you discovered the Pizookie yet? DELICIOUS.
I love Monster Cookie! As long as he is contained and doesn’t start attracting…um…bonus pets. Heh.
I’m sorry this has been nothing but trouble for you, but I thought you should know that every blog I read with banner ads now inform me where I can buy discount pool liners, so there’s that.