swimming

Swimming with O Rings

/ skidaz / Leave a comment

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Several years ago, one of my dearest friends since childhood wrote a delightful book, Swimming to Italy.  (It is available on Amazon.)  I was searching for a title for this blog, and hers immediately landed in my mind.

As I’ve noted numerous times, my new life has taken me thousands of miles from my comfort zone.  While I’ve come to understand more about home repairs than I ever wanted to know, I’ve managed to utilize my research and study skills in a plethora of new ways.  In fact, I find it curious many of my friends contact a schlep like me about appliances, plumbers, and cabinet refinishers.

Last week, however I was rocked with a new lesson.  The saga began with a leak in the automatic pool chlorinator.  (This is a wonderful device–under $100– that eliminates the need for rubber ducky floating around the pool.)  The pool repair guy diagnosed the problem–the cap needed a new O ring.  After it was lubed and installed, the leak stopped.

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Two days pass and the repairman returns.  The pool motor is surging.  Really, this is a high-end motor, less than 5 years old.  “I think I should just backwash the filter, and your problem will be solved.  You do it regularly, right?’

“Rarely.  I can get the valve down, but I’ve not strength to pull it up.  Even my uber-strong cabana boy has difficulty helping me.”

Pool guy backwashes and decides to take the valve apart.  “No wonder it was so difficult to pull up.  Look at these O rings.”

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Now, there were three more, bad O rings in the plunger valve.  Repair done.  New O rings.  All is…NOT well.  The motor surges again, which for you novices means too much air in the lines, which causes the motor to rev like a hot rod at the starting line, which causes blah, blah, blah.

Again, the pool guy returns to diagnose this new problem–another worn-out O ring!  By now, you are as bored as me about TMI and O rings.  Little circles of rubber with very important jobs.  Who knew?  Who cared?  Yet given the critical necessity of their position in the circle of life, perhaps we should all invest in a company that manufactures O’s!

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Swimming with Spiders

/ skidaz / Leave a comment

Phoenix summers are not for the faint-hearted.  The stifling heat, skin-burning pavement, fiery hot winds are brutal to visitors.  As they exit the jetway at Sky Harbor, they quickly realize they’ve arrived in a place Satan vacates in July.

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When my eldest, Annie, was also my only child, I established a summer routine.  We’d don our swim suits around 11:00 AM, play in the backyard pool for an hour, change into dry clothes, eat lunch, watch a video, and then she’d toddle off to nap time, while I worked on my dissertation.

Unlike high humidity states, wet towels and swim wear were draped on patio chairs; they dried instantly and were easily accessible for the next pool frolic.  On Tuesday morning, I gathered up the swim suits from the patio, pulled up Annie’s suit, and put on my two-piece.  (Yes, I realize I never did/have/will cause men to ogle at my body in a two-piece.  I simply prefer them to those tight one-piecers that hurt in all the wrong places.) And just like every other morning, we frolicked in the pool.

Fortunately, the bathroom had an outside door from the pool.  I helped Annie strip off her wet suit and pull on her shorts and t-shirt.  She ran off to find a Barbie doll as I began my disrobe routine.

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When I tossed my wet bra on the floor, I saw it.  Right there.  In the bra cup.  A big bug.  On closer examination, not an insect…a spider.  And not just any spider.  A FEMALE BLACK WIDOW!

 

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OMG!  It appeared to be alive.  I swished my bra in the toilet and flushed the arachnid away.  Oh, sweet baby Jesus, did I just spend an hour in chlorinated water with a spider on my chest?  Am I like the princess and the pea?

Thankfully, I just laughed off this encounter and didn’t bother to research said spider species.  Had I knew then, what I know now, I would have died from my own imagination.

Female Black Widows, unlike males or juveniles, have a red hourglass shape on the underside of their abdomens.  Unlike males or offspring young, female venom is 15 times more toxic than venom of a prairie rattlesnake!  (Be still my heart.)  While death from a Black Widow bite is extremely rare, human victims are nauseated, experience  muscle aches, and may have difficulty breathing.

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In retrospect, I will never know why Wilhelmina, the Widow, didn’t bite me.  Perhaps, she took pity on my flat chest; she saw first-hand I needed to make up with cotton what God had forgotten.  Perhaps, she was weary of sweating in the relentless sun, spinning a web, and yearning for a splash in the pool.  Or perhaps, she had mated with Wesley the Widow, ate him for breakfast, and wanted to chill.

Regardless of your motivation or lack thereof, I want to belatedly thank you, Wilhelmina,  for sparing me of poison, vomit, pain, and gasps.

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Coming next week:  Spider in my ear….