The Contraption

To cope with the seasonal escalation of floods in the sunroom, Tennisfiend has devised The Contraption.

The contraption consists of an extra-large plastic trash can with a two-inch hole drilled on the bottommost side. Secured into the hole with silicone, a short length of pvc pipe is connected to a twenty foot length of remnant vinyl pool hose. The vinyl hose extends from the trash can and past the east and south sides of the house where it reconnects with a four foot length of pvc near the driveway. 

When it rains, The Contraption is swiftly positioned under the most problematic roof corner, to catch rainwater. Unfortunately, this position varies according to the intensity of the rain, often requiring numerous trips through one of the sunroom windows (the back door is taped shut during serious rainstorms) to place it correctly. The Contraption actually works just like it is supposed to, filling up with rain water which exits through the vinyl hose and is drained down the driveway. For the first several rainstorms, The Contraption worked quite well, but these were the insignificant storms of June, incomparable to the deluges of July and August.

The first big rainstorm revealed that to adequately transport the roof runoff to the driveway, we would need a Contraption about the size of a Ford Expedition. The Contraption was so swiftly overwhelmed by the flood that it floated away and had to be held in position with a broom stuck through a window until it filled with enough water to stay put. Tennisfiend and I were briefly at odds over how much of a difference it made, but frankly, when the water is two inches above the back door, the 39 gallons circulated by The Contraption is trivial.

Of course, the next day we considered gutters for the roof, even taking measurements with some optimism. Despite our sad financial situation, and possible move to another state, we will not leave the next owners of our house stuck with this problem, like the previous owners did to us. Unfortunately, we discovered that a downspout is required every thirty feet, which still doesn’t solve the flooding problem! We will keep you posted about our next genius plan.

Patricia Rules

I dropped by to visit with Pat tonight, peanut butter and celery in hand. I'm doing the Atkin's thing, hoping for miracle weight loss. Tonight is her last evening here before an exiting vacation with in California. My friend dearly needs a reprieve. Her work has been hectic and unfair. Brrr--accounting. Brrr--managing people.

The two of us would make excellent (but not very quiet) librarians. Anyway, I was in a blue mood tonight. Dragged down by our fruitless job search, discouraged by my weight loss, and disappointed with personal issues ( I really want us to ditch his company and get another job), I had a pity party in the middle of her living room. Bless Ewbliette for her unflagging optimism, sweet sympathy, and grounded reality check. Oh, and bless her for being insanely funny! And bless her for the mess of Atkins goodies she sent me home with. Heh. Have a fun trip!!!

Follow up

We received a nice letter from the recruiter and will look into the job in Massachusetts.

East Coast?

I have to be vigilant today! A big recruiter from the east coat is supposed to call re a position in Lexington Massachusetts. I pretty much rule this out since the last place I want to live is on the east coast. E and I talked about it and decided that while we would like to work with the recruiter, the East Coast is off the table for us.

Eleven Months

Whoa, almost a year old. To celebrate we took pics:



 Since Tyoma imitates my sniffing while I cope with a cold, I caught him mid sniff:   For some odd reason the abouve picture reminded me of this:

From blog

Sniff!!!

The worst of my cold seems to be passing but I still have a bad case of the sniffles. Tyoma clearly thinks this is some new form of communication. While I fed him and sniffed away, he started to answer my sniffs with his own. How hilarious!!!

Summer Cold

After being cold free for over two years, today I come down sick. I assumed that the sore throat I had yesterday was a remnant from the wild time Ewbliette and I had Saturday. Rats. Spent most of the day on the internet helping with Tennisfiend's job search. Time well spent, since when TF came home he informed me that our friend AK will take the job in Dallas. We were both rather sad. Our friend is leaving and my husband's company is loosing a vital member of the team. I spent the rest of the evening sucking nasty zinc lozenges and inhaling steam. Bleh. I've been sick more often than usual, must be stress.

Whoa!

I just recieved the official announcement. Our Friend AK and his sweetie IK are getting married! I was pretty surprised since they were so hush-hush, but congratualations!

Tyoma and I visited with my folks this morning. I felt a bit wiped out after not sleeping so well. That's what I get for drinking two cups of coffee plus endless afternoon sodas during my Orgy of Fun with Pat yesterday. Anyway, TF was pensive throughout the day, preoccupied with the possibility of AK leaving his company. Things will work out for the best.

Dinner!

Tennisfiend grilled tomatoes and eggplant! It looked so lovely we felt bad for eating it all up!
 
  Went to gym today and then Sam's Club. Bought a ton of meat and cheese since I'm starting Atkin's tomorrow. Yum. Also bought a giganto-bag of almonds. Let's count the days before I'm sick of Laughing Cow and porkchops.

Girls in the Pool!

Today was fantastic! Ewbliette came over during Tyoma’s nap and we dished while gobbling multigrain Tostitos and swilling Aquafina. When squirmer woke up, we fed him lunch and took off for a stroll at the mall. Gratefully, we found a shady spot under a tree a within walking distance to the mall entrance. As we rolled the stroller up to the main walkway, we approached a teen fashion show blaring nameless music. Nostalgically, I recalled my own days strutting on the mini-catwalk. Heh. The music was quite different then. Goodness, how time passes quickly.

The rest of the mall was elbow-to-elbow people. Hordes of Las Crucens packed the main thoroughfare. The crowd thinned out after we passed the mini-mariachi band near the Verison cell phone booth. With less people, I was able to get a better look at the mall’s new floor.

Two years ago, the mall began a massive remodeling project. They scraped off the original terracotta tiles leaving pocked and crumbling concrete behind. The bare concrete seemed to be the new look since they bare and unrepaired for the next nine months. Then one night, the folks from El Paso International Airport snuck in and randomly glued the ugliest squares of cheap industrial grade carpeting everywhere. Some of the squares were peach, mustard, cadet blue, and olive. The remainders looked like giant tacky swaths of fabric snipped out of Dr. Cliff Huxtable’s least favorite sweaters. Absolutely hideous. And not hideous in an interesting way. Hideous in a half-assed, ill conceived, running-out-of-money-and-supplies-way. The furniture was marginally more tasteful, as if some sensible person arrived at the last moment and decided that the perfect naugahyde benchs would fix everything.

Sorry. I’ve been meaning to complain about that for a while. Anyway, we detoured through Dillards, where out of sheer perversity, they were displaying their most awesome clothes, ever (I have no money for clothes and I am weeks away from altering my maternity wear to look stylish). After regretfully departing from the cutest blue and brown flirty top, we trucked over to our true destination: Barnes and Nobel. It took us less than fifteen minutes to load up on books. Ewbliette treated me to a book on interior design that I could not live without (cheaper that the flirty blouse), reminding me that she had missed my birthday. She is so sweet, this is the third time that she had bought me books because she forgot my birthday. What a pal!

We drove over to her place, where spices obscured her kitchen table as she re-invents kitchen storage. Once every three months, she likes to mix things up--moving furniture, reorganizing cabinets and shelves, and re-hanging wall art. I admire her energy and envy her tolerant husband. Once something finds a place in my house, it never moves. Tennisfiend despises change. We drank sodas and gabbed, feeding Tyoma dinner before returning to my place.

Tennisfiend whizzed out of the house the instant we returned. He left to visit with his buddy A, leaving us to our own devices. Tyoma took some alone time after even more food and I pumped milk while Ewbliette cracked open the design book I so adored at B & N. We chose patterns for our dream homes and spend thousands of dollars in twenty hopeful minutes. After he went to sleep (instantaneously!) Ewbliette went to the store and I fixed up the back porch with an umbrella, table, chairs, fans, a sprinkler and rope lights.

We talked for two hours straight before hitting the pool. The water was so warm; it was like swimming in blood. Nevertheless, a chill descended over the desert around 9:00, making the water the perfect temperature. We bobbed and circled each other until about ten, when I wobbled out of the pool and into the house. I heard a car pull up and stop in the driveway, and assumed Tennisfiend had returned home. Twenty minutes later, when we both returned to the house, I freaked since Tennisfiend was not there and the AC pump switch had been flipped “off”

E.T.A.: We discovered that out AC periodically switches the pump off), filling the house with a pungent fishy-algae smell. Swamp coolers suck. A phone call revealed that TF was still with A, and the car/AC thing event was a weird coincidence.