I am sitting in the orthodontists’ office waiting for braces to be removed from the eagerly anticipated straight smile of my youngest daughter. While we do this, my eldest daughter took responsibility for opening my shop and my mother is at my house, having arrived this past weekend for my son’s graduation from high school.
I mention all of this because I have spent the weekend reveling in memories of times past. The things we thought would never come to pass, have. Life has a way of moving on—especially when you’re not paying attention. You spend so much time planning for the events of life, that sometimes it is difficult to grab the memories as they are happening. Most of the time, I feel blessed that this all seems so gradual, but lately, I’m feeling a little rushed.
We had a great weekend with family and friends in town for the graduation celebration. It was difficult for our son to arrange a time to have his friends over to celebrate, though; everyone has their own family obligations. So, we’ve decided to attempt a get-together for this weekend.
In anticipation of his party—and just because it’s time—we uncovered the pool last weekend. We were torn about getting started because there were hundreds, probably thousands of tadpoles swimming in the murky water atop the cover. I know I’ve mentioned our war-without-end against the mosquito population in our backyard. Well, how do you justify killing thousands of potential mosquito predators? We couldn’t, so Darren carefully transferred as many as he could to one of our galvanized tubs and we proceeded with the unveiling.
Mind you, we knew this wasn’t going to be any easy opening. In early fall our first cover tore and some muck slipped into the pool. Not having the time to remove it and clean the pool then, we slapped another cover on top and hoped for the best. Well, we got what we expected. The pool was filled with leaves and several larger tadpoles; the water color resembles the river down the hill. Yuck!
As this pool was my big idea, I took responsibility for the bulk of the cleaning. I spent most of my holiday scooping leaves and vacuuming muck. I am sorry, there are a few tadpoles that did not survive the pull of the filter pump. We’ve allowed it to settle for a couple days and today we will vacuum it again. Hopefully we can vacuum again tomorrow and then start hammering it with the chemicals.
As I said, this pool was my big idea. Remember about 6 years ago when President George W. Bush announced a tax rebate of $1100 for each kid we had claimed on our taxes? Well, I thought we should use this money for something fun for the kids. Heck, they were the reason we were getting this windfall, right? Having recently returned from Alabama where we had visited friends with an above-ground pool, I had started thinking differently about them. Not the friends—above-round pools. I am ashamed to confess, I’ve always had a sort of prejudice about them, but unlike some, I’ve been able to admit that it was a mistake to discriminate against them—especially considering that’s all we could afford. Suddenly, they were attractive and possessive of much potential. A few strategically placed tropical plants and no one would notice the metal siding, right?
So, that’s how we came to have a pool in our backyard. Thanks to President Bush and my husband’s weakened sensibilities (he was deployed at the time) we have a splash pond.
I have to admit, at times like these, I regret the purchase. But in a week when it is clean and we’re floating in circles, cooling off after yard work, I’ll be gloating about my brilliant decision to install a pool.
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