I had been giving her the run of the house since she figured out how to knock down one of the kiddie gates blocking the two doors to the kitchen. I figured she was old enough and housebroken enough to be allowed to roam freely, while Pete still has a tendency to pee and poop inside when nobody lets him out in time.
But a few minutes ago, I discovered that Ruthie has been peeing on the stairway landing, a section of berber carpet already badly stained by Pete. Or maybe it wasn't Pete, after all.
My annonyance is tempered by the fact that I wouldn't have discovered Ruthie's transgression were it not for a very good thing that happened today.
We got the freaking hot tub moved up onto the deck, filled and running!
George, our disappearing garage contractor, has been promising to move the tub for at least six weeks. Maria left him a voicemail untimatum earlier this week: either get your ass up here and work on our garage project, or provide us with the promised plans, proof of insurance and bonding and a receipt proving that our May 1 check for $14,920 actually went for building materials at Menards by Friday or, come next Monday, we'll be talking about legal action. Needless to say, we've heard nothing and it's now late on Thursday night.
Anyhow, I called Watson's, the folks who sold us the tub back in January of 2001, and asked them to hook me up with someone who could move it. They did and the guys showed up at noon today. By 1:15 p.m., they had it up on the deck and hooked up to power.
I waited until the afternoon sun was on the other side of the house to venture out into the 93-degree heat (that's 33.8 degrees Celsius for Lovisa and everyone else on the metric system) and scrubbed it down, bailed out the soapy water and filled it with about 500 gallons (1,892 liters) of fresh water.
I threw the switch and the pump came on. Checking the temperature a half-hour later, I was pleased to see the heater was still working.
I tossed in some sanitizing and pH balancing chemistry and used Armorall to restore the luster to the tub cover after it was coated with dust from the concrete demolition of a month ago.
I even Armoralled our gas grill, making it look almost like new.
At this writing, it's up to about 90 degrees which is still a bit cool for nighttime tubbing, but it should be at the default temperature of 100 in time for an early morning dip.
There's also a strong odor of ammonia in the air outside tonight, probably wafting over from the Farm Bureau Coop where some moronic meth-head has probably left a valve open while stealing ammonia to make his poison.
Come to think of it, I wonder if George has disappeared into a cloud of methamphetamine. That would go a long way toward explaining his dramatic shift from reliable contractor to a consistent out-of-touch no-show.
I consider that the $225 to move and connect the tub is a small price to pay for something that even partially restores balance to our lives, which have been horribly blasted out of whack since early April when we had to absorb all of the stuff from our two garages into the house, followed by the horrendous clusterfuck that has been our garage project.
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