"Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars." - Fred Allen

You probably heard the scream.
THE LILY POND LEAKS!!
I got up this morning to find the water level down almost two inches since last night. How???

The walls are 6” thick cinder blocks with a layer of mortar on the interior surface and two coats of DryLock. The floor is 2” of cement AND another inch of mortar with two coats of DryLock. The ground around the sides was soaked, meaning the floor was leaking. I popped a few caps off the top of the walls and could see the interior of the blocks was wet. The water is getting through everywhere!

I surrender.
I called Pond World in Enid, OK and ordered a pond liner. If they were able to get it shipped out today it should arrive Tuesday, and if not by Thursday. The liner would get punctured by the irregularities in the mortar surface because I saw no reason to trowel it very smooth. She said I could use almost anything as a protective layer including old carpet.
TaDah!
My next project is a complete remodel of the master bedroom that includes taking the popcorn off the ceiling, all new trim, new paint AND wood flooring. So tomorrow, well ahead of my planned timetable, I’ll rip up the carpet so it’s available to use in the pond.
That would be the pond out of which I’m currently draining 845 gallons of water. No, wait. Make that 800 gallons. The other 45 leaked out overnight.

I did this pond as a DIY to save $$$. Stupid hard work, first digging the hole (two weeks) and then laying and surfacing the block. The floor leaked after Plan A so I went to Plan B (more leaking) and then Plan C. Here I am at Plan D, buying a pond liner anyway. (They aren’t cheap.)

Have you ever hit a stretch when it seemed like everything in life was broken? Not the huge, big issues, just a long list of little things.
I got up this morning to see the pond problem. The printer isn’t working (again) so I can’t get the bulletins for Sunday done. Jack didn’t eat this morning and has been acting oddly so I have an appointment at the vet’s tomorrow morning. Tax issues.
I told Pam I needed some successes to salvage my attitude. So far I haven’t found any.
I know better than to look for them at the golf course!!

In what has to be the definition of the word irony and the term “unintended consequences,” a study released today says the drug in Propecia and Proscar that encourages hair growth for bald men also causes what, for the purposes of this blog, we’ll just call adverse sexual side effects.
There’s some intrinsic justice in that.

If road construction requires that two lanes merge into one there’s always some guy who will drive up the disappearing lane just as far as he can and then try to cut into the line of people who moved over back when the signs appeared.
If he’s driving a jacked-up 4x4 and you’re driving a ’67 VW Beetle this ends in what could also be called a strategic default.

We’re going out to dinner tonight. I haven’t asked Pam, but it’s dinner time, she’s not back from errands yet, and there’s no sign of anything developing in a crock pot or other cooking device.

I don’t mind going out for dinner; we typically do on Friday nights. Someplace fancy like Paradise Bakery or Chipotle. (Fancy is a relative term, and in this case it stands in relationship to Burger King.) But we had big plans for tonight that got canceled.

A couple of weeks ago I asked for and rec’d recommendations from the people at Pathway for one-off restaurants, especially ethnic joints. They should all be reasonably priced and ideally either downtown or in the west valley. I got a great list!

Then I made them a deal. Pam and I would provide free babysitting on a Friday night so they could go out to one of those places IF they joined up with another Pathway couple, AND it had to be a couple they don’t normally hang with.

We were supposed to do that tonight but the adults had conflicts. The best part: it was going to involve three couples and seven kids, all under the age of six. We were going to PARTY!! Alas, it will have to wait for another time.

I needed to party tonight!