Basement Pool Time

My wife finally sucked me into her whirlwind cleaning vortex in the basement yesterday.  After I painted the floor down there this past winter I envisioned her taking a few months to sort through what needed to be done.  She put it off until this past week and decided to compress her month long job typically into a few days.  I was lulled into a false sense of security as she allowed me a leisurely breakfast and blogging time while she administered to her vast assortment of flowers.  It was so hot outside that even Buddy the Wonder Pooch abandoned his post as primary guard to the wife’s flower ministrations.

My Wife and Her Flowers Yesterday

I guess I shouldn’t complain that I got to work in a basement where most of the cold air from the A/C ends up but my wife is relentless if nothing else.  She’s been down there for the better part of a peek and I spent over two hours trying to compact the trash she had accumulated into the rubbish company’s weekly allotment of bags.  These are very big bags; I hope they send a burly guy. 

She next assigned me to processing a huge basket my second tier memorabilia.  It’s semi-remarkable how many plaques, certificates, and photos I acquired over my years in the Army.  My office walls are covered with many as are the walls of the basement.  There was this last pesky basket though where a bunch had been languishing for the last decade.  This turned out to be fairly difficult because there were memories associated with each piece.  I ended up tossing the frames of most and keeping the documents and photos in a file.  Buddy looked on commiserating with my predicament.  Two hours later and the basket was empty.

The Detritus of My Basket Emptying Efforts

I was rescued from my subterranean efforts by a 4^th of July party at one of my wife’s friends.  She grudgingly released me from servitude long enough to get ready.  It was kind of cool to see the dozens of barbecues and Independence Day parties we passed as we made the short drive to our destination.  It seemed like all was right with the universe as this is the way it’s supposed to be.

The Party - Chow Time

The party turned out to be a lot of fun.  I was able to stay keto appropriate, well except for the beer.  We ate poolside and I spent most of the afternoon in the pool dodging lethal, 8-year old assassins armed with water pistols.  I hadn’t swum in a long time and it felt great, especially in the 95 degree weather.  The pool was over stocked with energetic children but I spent most of my time swimming along the bottom.  I finally had to abandon the aquatic environs due to the pressures of beer consumption.  I had a funny moment changing out of the bathing suit when my underwear ended up in the commode (luckily after the flush).  I was therefore commando for the rest of the party which my wife found intensely amusing for some reason.

Pool Stocked with Assassins - We Spent Most of Our Time Under the Umbrella on Far Side

We returned home to shepard Buddy through his least favorite night of the year as he endured the almost constant barrage of fireworks from our nearby lake.  He, clad in his thundershirt, was doing fairly well until someone dropped the big one, which rattled all the windows in the house.  He disappeared downstairs and I thought he’d taken refuge in his cage.  I went down fifteen minutes later to find he had tried to burrow through the items my wife set aside for donation that had been neatly stacked in the basement.  I was actually kind of impressed with the level of destruction he achieved in a short amount of time.  So it goes.