The Cabana Girl

I never wanted to learn the mechanics of the salt water automated pool. Bill went off to London without doing the weekly maintenance of the swimming pool. Told me to "superchlorinate" it on Sunday. That is accomplished through programming on the electronic box that sits in the living room of the house. A total mystery to me. I only know how to drive a few things with this control station. Certainly not all the settings functions that can be programmed.

But something about the water told me that it should be checked like Bill does weekly. Had my cabbie friend Karen come take me to run some errands. So here is the story:

I take some water to the pool store and they run it through their computer. I have no chlorine in the pool, the pH is off. I need acid and stabilizer and to "superchlorinate" the pool. Buy the acid and the stabilizer. Pour a gallon of acid in around the pool. Go to the filter basket and remove one live frog. Pour in the stabilizer. Come in and look at the magic control box and find "settings" poke a few buttons til I find "superchlorinate" hit that and "Good, I'm done." Hope that it runs on superchlorinate 24 hours -- the amount of time they told me to run it. It doesn't say how long it will run for.

Check the status window and it indicates the temperature of the pool, the air and then it says superchlorinate and the amount of time left is 23:45. Great. . I'm elated! I've figured out the system without reading anything. Go by the control box the next afternoon, 24 hours later and the red light is on that says "Check System" . Oh Wonderful! Now What????? Check the status and it says:"Salt System Low 2900PPM"

So I call Karen again. " Come on over, we have to go to the pool store and check the water again." At the pool store, I tell my friendly pool guy, "The system says I'm low on salt. I'm starting to get a feel for this pool stuff. Somehow I never thought of myself as Juan the pool boy" He says, "No, You are the Cabana Girl". Well, there are possibilities I guess. He then says "You're in perfect balance except for your salt" I say: "Not everyone can say that". So I head home with 40# of salt; put it in the edge of the pool and run the pool cleaner around for an hour. Now, it's perfect.

You know what I think? I think Bill loses the priviilege of taking care of the pool. He has been irresponsible and obviously doesn't know how to do it when he told me to "just superchlorinate it on Sundays" while he was gone. ha ha After all, the Cabana Girl should know.

Funny How One Incident can Turn World Travel Upside Down

So my brother flies out of the country tomorrow. I'd like to say that I have confidence that our intelligence is so good that there is no need to worry when he travels internationally. I'd like to believe that our intelligence is so competent that we don't have to worry on any flights we take. But I just can't quite get there. I'm wondering why if the British are banning electronic devices from the cabin, we aren't banning them in this country. Are we only banning them if we have intelligence of a plot?......Are we not thinking that maybe if this is a possible danger it would be a good idea to pack them away all the time? The logic, or lack thereof amazes me. Either something is inherently dangerous or it isn't. Gels, liquids, electronic devices. The verdict is.....?
and juice for babies is ok? We can't get this from the airline?

If you think of it from an efficiency standpoint, no carry-on luggage. Think of the ease of boarding and deplaning!

Extreme? Perhaps. But I am extremely angry that someone feels they are entitled to board a plane and blow it up killing all on board because they hate us and our way of life. So whatever it takes to prevent that from becoming possible, I applaud.

MY BROTHER

My brother,is an amazing man. He is a caring person and always lending a hand helping some buddy doing something from fixing an electrical problem to driving a horse trailer up to somebody's ranch delivering a horse and hay. He enjoys working in his workshop which he built last year (an addition to plus the entire garage) , swimming in his pool, drinking beer and spending time with his friends and me and he loves to throw a party. Crayfish and shrimp boils; brisket and ribs barbecued and smoked; Cajun food from the Louisiana food store;.

To meet him at home, you would think he was a native Texan,...A downhome good guy - very talented in woodworking, with a shop equipped with every tool known to man. There is nothing he can't build either metal or wood....And he always has a project going. He has built a baby dresser/changing table; crayfish table (wood); crayfish table (metal powder coated); pig roaster (stainless); workshop table (wood); welding table (metal); poker table (wood and felt). The current project is a cabinet which will hold a flat screen TV which will raise up out of the cabinet at the foot of his bed when he wants to watch television. This weekend he bought two sheets of unusual wood veneer and inlaid "the cowboy's prayer" black wood on light wood for the front of the cabinet. Anyone interested can see this picture at http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=cowboy+prayer&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-img-t-t400&x=wrt the second picture. And he has to be doing something all the time. Last weekend, it was install two fans with lights on the back patio and connect them to one remote and perfect it so the lights work perfectly in sync .

And this is the same man who started working in the mail room at a major oil and gas corporation and is now a building consultant on major renovation, and new buildings in the Global Real Estate Function of that same corporation. He travels to London and Scotland on one of his assignments every month and his new assignment is to be in Paris, France. He reports to Senior Management in the corporation. He is highly respected and well liked and the highest ranked in his group. And he works very hard. He works like all highly competent bipolar people I know. Is he? I'd bet on it. Not as severely as I am...But he has the manic side just as I always did. He has the periods where he forgets the things he shouldn't at home. It has gotten worse with the overseas travel (stress). I will watch out for him. He would never go to the doc. We will have to pray that he never reaches the breaking point like I did.

This is the same man who has stood in the emergency room and waited to hear whether or not I would make it on three different occasions of depression suicide attempts. Who met with counselors and doctors to discuss what we could do the last time when the prognosis was so bad.
Who tries to understand bipolar disorder in order to help me.

I'm very lucky to have such a brother for a best friend.

I'm Published!

• Well in the mail today I received notice that one of my poems is to be published in a book being put out by Poetry.com. That site is somewhat controversial. There is no doubt that they make a fair amount of money with their books and other momentos of your poetry that they will provide. But they have contests and a number of people do win money awards. I have yet to be one of them. So they have my poem published, the copyright is mine, and "No" I'm not buying the volume of poetry. I suppose I should not supply any more poetry to them to make money on as they do; but, who knows, I might just win one of those contests one of these days. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! HaHa. Good Night to All. The poem is on my other blog: "My Knight in Dripping Armor."