My long time friend Lyn called yesterday

She caught me out by the pool

I told her about my pool episode, my pool battle, which had us both in stitches laughing, she said I had to blog about it

It was day 3 of subbing for the pool guy, which hasn’t shown up for a month or 2

So when we had the pool party in September for Mary’s retirement weekend, we got these floating solar lighted balls

The regular pool guy always takes them out of the pool when he comes

Sometimes the wind picks them up, takes them out, but most of the time they leave the pool by way of the pool guy

I began to notice in March, the balls weren’t leaving the pool

It was March, the weather cool or cold…..so I didn’t pay much attention to the pool up close, just from afar

Maybe the landlord put them on a modified schedule to reduce costs…..I know I might think to do that if it were my bill to pay

Anyway, as the weather started getting nicer, we started going out to the pool deck, that’s when I noticed, the pool guy definitely hadn’t been around for a while

There were tons of leaves on the bottom, the filter was filled with leaves, the pool sweeping bot’s bag was stuffed, there was a yellow pollen colored dust on the pool sides and bottom…..

What started as a process to get the pool ready for the party, which was planned but didn’t happen, became an obsession for me, a distraction

It seems the landlord overlooked a bill…….the pool team dropped us from the route….hence the balls floating in the pool non stop

I reached out to the landlord to see if we could get help of the pool guy before the party…….but that wasn’t materializing as quickly as we needed so I started the process of leaf removal from the filter, the pool bot bag, skimmed the surface…..

Still no pool guy…..so I used the hot tub test equipment to test the pool water…..zero cholorine, nada, zilch

Hmmmm……the clock was ticking till the party so I put pressure on the landlord to find out from the pool guy which chemical direction they take the pool, chlorine or bromine….by gosh by golly, I was going to bet that pool in ship shape!

We needed to “shock” the pool STAT!

Got my answer on the chems…..and then we called 911 and the whole hospital episode occurred

So once we got Matt home, things stabilized with him here, that’s when my obsession really kicked into gear, when it became a consuming distraction!

Debbie came over on Saturday so I could run to Friendman’s to grab the first round of chems, and testing strips

There was so much I needed to figure out, what chems to use, how to operate the pump….did alot of research on line to get prepared, find the right guru

I found a website from a so called “pool nerd” who explained how to do things right and how most everyone was doing things wrong……ha ha, not me, I am paying attention to the pool nerd!

I had to figure out how to turn the pump on so the water would circulate when I dropped the chems in…….found the quick clean, but that only lasted 30 minutes, I needed the over night cycle when I dumped the chems in

Found the way to over ride the system, run the pump……thanks to all the help on the internet

Fast forward to this morning, after giving the pool treatments for the last 3 days, fixing the bot hose, running the pump, the chems seem to be back in balance

Albeit, the pool is still a bit cloudy, so that’s my next quest…..

Unfortunately, the community of tadpoles didn’t make it

Left unchecked, I fear we would have had a massive invasion of frogs in due course, like a massive one based on all the tadpoles that had found home in the pool when the chlorine was reading zero

My imagination ran away with me on that one…..I imagined them taking over the pool, then marching right up and through the front door to take over the house……like I said, this was a needed distration!

I’ve learned a lot, reconnected with my pool life guard memories, perhaps found a new part time gig path to consider, as a pool gal…….

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