Calm in the storm

I bring you this serene image -- that's the majolica rooster in one of our kitchen windows -- in a vain attempt to take myself to the same mindset.

I should be more phlegmatic, with an emphasis on the "phlegm" part, given my cold. But yesterday the jackhammer was about the final touch.

Earlier in the day we'd opened the pool, taking the cover off after the long winter to find the usual collection of bleached leaves -- but also a heavy, grainy precipitate that I vacuumed out as best I could for a few hours.

Still, there's a residue in whorls on the pool floor that can't be dislodged, even with a brass brush. Turns out Ray has been adding the wrong kind of salt (softener pellets instead of plain rock salt), and I suspect the "improvements" in the chemistry are what's streaking the pool. We'll probably have to drain and acid-wash it.

Then there was the joy of navigating storm-tossed traffic to get paint for the apartment over the garage, which we're freshening up in anticipation of a full house for Robert's June bridge tournament, and supplies for my little jaunt to Key West to visit our real roosters, starting Sunday. Any time I'm tempted to complain about South Florida traffic, remind me about Tennessee. They may be rude in Miami, but at least they know how to drive.

Then the jackhammers. The red quarry tile in our breezeway was starting to buckle, so Jim-Bob Construction (I swear I am not making that up; and anyway, they're nice guys) started taking it out to put a fresh layer down, but discovered that the concrete substrate had to go and began excavating in earnest. So beyond the noise, there's the grit slowly migrating everywhere.

Maybe the Romans, with their aqueducts lasting millennia, knew something we don't, and that's why their concrete is still just ducky. Or maybe they were lucky not to have pneumatic paving-breakers around when they suspected they might have a flaw.