oceancat11

The next person who says to me, "Is it hot enough for ya?" is gonna get popped.

For sundry reasons, my tolerance for the hottest of hot days is gone, replaced by the far greater likelihood that if it's over 80 degrees, I am going to overheat and be rendered useless for the rest of the day. If I worked indoors this would probably be less of a problem, but I don't, and as a result I've had to come home early from work two days in a row. It's been 95 degrees, and 115 degrees in the greenhouses. On Sunday I made it until 3, and yesterday, noon. Today? Well, my boss called last night and said I should stay home, since today's supposed to be the hottest day of the heatwave. (Did I mention I have the best boss EVER?) It drives me crazy, though, because I hate being incapable. It's going to be a long summer if this is what's going to happen everytime it gets hot out. So yes, thanks, it is hot enough for me. (Sigh. I'm becoming somebody who talks about the weather.)

However, despite the fact that it was 104 degrees in NYC, I went to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's annual festival on Saturday (and holy hell, am I glad the historic Puck Building has air conditioning!). My sister, the illustrious norda (http://norda.livejournal.com/) was wont to go, and conveniently Beth and I had both a car and a free Saturday! It was a spur-of-the-moment trip, which often are the best. Being in NYC for the first time in nine months was strangely bracing - I am far from a city girl but the bewilderment I feel in other cities is somehow lessened in NY. Probably because it is the first city I learned how to explore and navigate on my own. (I clearly remember the first time I left my gated college campus to take the subway by myself from the Bronx to spend four hours at the Museum of Natural History. It hit me as I was walking on the sidewalk outside the museum that I had never felt so Grown Up.)

MoCCA itself was great, though seeing so many creative people in one room (or a series of several rooms, I suppose) was a little breathtaking. I did get to see several of my fvorite artists/cartoonists/writers/what-have-you, bought some shtuff, and came home with ideas of new artists (or artists new to me) that I want to check out on the intrawebs. I didn't really talk to anyone aside from the bare basics ("Nice to meet you." and "How much is that t-shirt?") since the shyness-in-the-face-of-talent kicked in, but my sister got to do her rounds and see her peeps. Highlights outside of MoCCA included real NY pizza (don't underestimate it!), McNally Robinson bookstore, and no traffic getting out of town.


And so, one of the cool things about this new house is that there's a pool. It's totally a bonus - a pool was not one of the requirements in house-hunting - and up until three weeks ago we weren't even sure what kind of shape the pool was in. We did have a feeling it was going to be kind of rough, though, since at some point during the winter, maybe even before we moved in, half of the cover fell into the pool and with it a lot of the leaves and muck that the cover was holding. So we decided to hire a pool guy to open it up and do a spring cleaning.

Well. Here's a "Before" picture of the pool three weeks ago:



Since then, the pool guy has removed some of the leaves and added something like 25 gallons of Shock and 20 gallons of chlorine. I'm afraid to stick my hand in to clean out the fliter catch. The water is no longer green and thick, now it is blue and semi-viscous. We can see the bottom in the shallow end now (including a view of the three paving stones that were holding the cover on at one point - who knows how many more fell in the deep end). But let me tell you, with it being 95 degrees this week, having a pool and not being able to use it is just cruel, even if it is a bonus.

(NOTE: Okay, so just this morning Beth and I remembered that there are ceiling fans in the kitchen and sunroom. Duh!)

(Edit: Pool guy just came! Spent a halfhour pulling more leaves off the bottom, says he can't really vacuum until the water is clear and he can see what's down there. Added more chemicals. So still no swimming for a while. Couldn't even hazard a guess. Ergh.)