Because You, Internet, Deserve An Actual Post...

and not just the drivel I have been blowing your way for the past few weeks.

Today is the 3rd day of back to school and I already have one child home with the flu. Not a cold or minor cough, but a full blown, vomit-chills-fever-aches-cough flu. Not only is this child totally under the weather, but I found out yesterday, in the most disturbing of manner, that 4 out of 5 of us have been using the same toothbrush (apparently, all the men in my family thought the PINK brush was theirs) so it should be only a matter of time before the small yet deadly germs that are currently working their evil way through my son's system make a grand appearance in the rest of us. Eva, being clever enough to remember that her toothbrush is the purple one with the smiley kitty sticker, will have to nurse us all to our recovery.

The good news is that we can still see and have not gone blind which is what would have surely been the case had we done our typical cannonball entry into the pool last Sunday. I have made several trips to deep Anaheim (past Disneyland! Who knew anything else was out there!) to "the lab" where Lewis, the straight-from-casting mad scientist for hire, has been hard at work analyzing and studying various and sundry samples of water from our pool, gunk from the filter and some leaves from the surrounding pool area. We are in the most tedious of posistions, needing to: A) correctly identify the substance (pretty sure it is paint thinner) and then, B) upon identification, figure out the safe and responsible manner for getting rid of it.

As that damn harbor seal, whose image graces every storm drain in my neighborhood, reminds me, "All storm drains lead to the ocean". This means that there is a particular part per million ratio that I must achieve in order to drain my pool. And yes, drain the pool and acid wash it we must. Because the water looks clean but feels oily and that just squicks me out and I am practically gagging just typing the words.

The very nice Mormon family who own the cover company (do you know how I know they are Mormon? It was a little something I found out after I had a teensy freak out rational discussion which involved the use of every four letter word in existence and perhaps a few that I may have, in the heat of the moment, made up. To be fair to myself, they were really dropping the ball and they did, after realizing that I was apparently willing to sell my immortal soul to the devil himself in order to get some damn service, rise to the occasion and take care of what was sure to be an insurance nightmare of epic proportions if left unchecked) explained that the polymer substance of the cover has itself been compromised and will smell and be toxic forever. FOREVER. The drama, sheesh.

It one of those built in electronic jobs that rolls up at the deep end and can support the whole family if your whole family got drunk and fell into the pool area at the same time. Instead of having a generation ending disaster, you would merely have the gang rolling about in a manner very similar to a seventies themed frolic upon a totally far out water bed.

Moving on, and I hope you are sitting down, the house, as of this afternoon, is finished. Oh sure, there are one or two little re-doish things, but 99.9% of everything is complete and we can now move on to the very fun and painful to the wallet portion of a remodel: The Buying Of All New Things (because now that everything is shiny and pretty, all the old stuff looks like crap).

The next month will be nothing but delivery vans and efficient UPS men with electronic clipboards. I will be "signing here" for chairs, rugs, doormats, duvets and lamps. Then, when it is all put together, my family and I will stand outside and look in through the windows... we will smile and compliment ourselves on the gorgeous teak floors and the discuss how perfect that glass lamp looks on the Indonesian armoire... or we will oooohhh and ahhhh over the memory of just how soft and luxurious the +hundred thread count sheets in the master bedroom felt... and then we will make our way back to the garage where some cot beds and a battery lantern will welcome us... because, you don't think I am actually letting anyone use any of the new stuff do you?

***
LAB RESULTS ARE IN !

It is indeed paint and paint thinner... how delightful! At least now we* can go about the very fun business of cleaning it up.

*"We" would not be us, but rather "others".