Our pool service is raising its rates and we need to shop around for someone more reasonable. Just to make things complicated, the filter crapped out. Dirt and whatever else lurks in the water is getting sucked out but then pumped straight back in again. We can fix our old cartridge-style filter or replace it with a sand filter, and we’re probably going to go with sand. The cheapest way to do that is to have our current pool guy do the work. Once that’s done, we can sign on with a new service. Aren’t we the thoughtful clients? The old service goes out with a nice, profitable bit of extra work and the new service comes in with everything working properly.
Boy if there’s one thing I wish we could do over, it’s having a pool. A hole in the ground in every way.
When we put our old dachshund, Mister B, down a few days ago, we expected to grieve hard. There’s a hole in our lives, absolutely, but I’m able to write about it, and we’re both at peace with our decision to ease him over the bridge. He was suffering and if anything we should have made the hard decision sooner.
Fritzi and Lulu, his younger housemates, know he’s gone but were a little confused at first. At mealtimes, I always put the dogs’ food bowls down at specific locations in the kitchen. The morning after Mr. B passed, I put Lulu’s bowl down on the spot where I used to put his. She backed away from it and wouldn’t eat. Lulu has never been a shy dog when it comes to food … she thought I was serving Mr. B and kept her distance. This morning I put her bowl down there and she went right for it. I’ve moved Fritzi’s bowl closer to Mr. B’s old spot as well, and she’s fine with that. They’re adjusting, as are we.
Will we ever get another dog? Well, we have two energetic younger dachshunds, each around six or seven years of age (we don’t know exactly), and they’re all the love and companionship we need, but should we outlive them, yes, I can see us doing it. At our age, though, it would have to be another senior dog, as Mr. B was when we took him in.
I still keep up with book banning and censorship news and have a draft You Can’t Read That! post in the queue. It’s discouraging work … the bad guys are on a roll and until the public has had enough they’re not going to stop trying every trick in the book to control and limit information. But how will the public know it’s had enough if the good guys stop reminding them of what’s under attack with news reports and editorials and podcasts and yes, even blog posts? We have to keep fighting back. The tide will turn, eventually. It has to.