Woulda Coulda Shoulda

We knew, not even very far into it, that fixing the pool was yet another Curse Of Casa Mir project, doomed from the start. What could go wrong, would go wrong. Obviously.

Much went wrong. So much went wrong, they had to redo the liner entirely, which meant the first one was taken away and a second one installed last week. EVERYTHING IS FINE NOW, they assured us. LOOK THIS LINER IS PERFECT, NO PROBLEMS, PLEASE DO NOT PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, they said. (The “please do not punch me” part was possibly implied. I never threatened to hit anyone. Not out loud, anyway.) They came while Otto was teaching his summer class and took out the old liner and put the new one in and then scampered out of here as fast as they could, probably because they knew I am a woman on the edge and also Mr. Completely Unflappable was considerably flapped by this entire adventure.

Otto came home; we finished filling up the pool, and then commenced dumping all the chemistry in the world into the water, to the tune of several hundred dollars. (Why do I mention this? The liner itself was a 4-figure job, why split hairs about the cost of the chemistry? BECAUSE I AM BITTER, THAT’S WHY.) When you start from scratch, there’s a bunch of stuff that has to go into the water. The salt for the chlorinating system, plus stabilizers and pH balancers and I don’t even know what. All I know is that we dumped and stirred and then I said to Otto, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we went to turn it on and the filter doesn’t work, after all of this?” (more…)

So, I have a confession to make: Today’s post of mine over at Feel More Better, about how today’s teens text more than they talk, is a little more grumpy than it seems on the surface.

Yes, I’m wondering about the parallels between what they do now, and the note-scribbling, constant-phone-talking existence I led as a teen. Sure.

But really, deep down? What I was thinking about when I wrote it is that Chickadee’s received exactly two contacts from friends since her hospitalization: One lengthy letter from a lovely young woman who also emails to ask me how she is, and one card from a friend whose mother probably made her do it. That’s IT. Because if they can’t text or email someone, they pretty much cease to exist. And that… kind of sucks. Though Chickie herself tends to feel that way, too, so it’s possible I’m more bothered by it than she is.

Does it mean today’s teens are less connected, or does it mean I’m just being oversensitive? Come weigh in because I honestly have no idea.

I told someone yesterday that if our life right now was a novel or a movie, I’d be rolling my eyes at how unrealistic it is, because NO ONE has luck that bad. It’s just not believable.

In other words: How was your weekend? Ours involved The Hunger Games, and then stomach flu. Yes. Because of course it did. And it’s not like the kid hasn’t missed a bazillion days of school already….

Anyway, because I suspect you’d rather not hear stories about rainbow gummy worm puke (see?), today you can go on over to Off Our Chests and read about flying, instead. What greater joy is available to the modern world, except possibly having an unmedicated root canal? Exactly.

In 2010, Monkey had a seizure, and I spent about three weeks completely convinced that he had a brain tumor. Otto and I lay in bed at night, holding hands, talking quietly about the “what if”s and sometimes about nothing very important, just because neither of us could sleep and it was comforting to whisper in the dark, together. Then the flu tore through the house the next month, causing us to cancel our holiday trip, and our battle cry became “2011!” As in, “2011 is gonna be our year!”

Well, 2011 was good in that we found out that Monkey didn’t have a tumor and wasn’t dying. That was VERY good. But he did stay out of school for about a month, before/during/after surgery, and then there was the whole ZOMG WHERE IS HE GOING TO SCHOOL NEXT YEAR thing, and other stuff happened, and blah blah blah, whatever; we changed the rallying cry to “2012! That’s going to be our year!”

We were about 5 days in to the new year when Otto changed it to “2013! 2013 FOR SURE!” And Otto is the optimist in this couple, as you know, so… things are Not Good. (more…)