Onto the drama!
It all started last week when we had a little rain, which of course, by "a little" I mean torrential downpour for like 4 days. There was the chair in the pool on Wednesday:
I would, however, like you to notice that this chair is at the bottom of the pool and you can see it. Thursday it poured all day again, not exactly ideal weather for keeping the pool pretty. Friday at lunch I noticed that there were a lot of leaves from the rain, so I start in raking them out with the leaf net, to keep me from having to vacuum so many leaves. I get home Friday after work and the pool is starting to get REALLY cloudy. I jump in my car (it is 5:30, Thompson's closes at 6:00) and drive to get PolySheen (clarifier). I get back home and start in on vacuuming. There are a lot of leaves, so I have to clean out the basket. I get about half of the shallow end done and move onto the deep end. Vacuum is sucking (in a good way) quite well until it stops sucking all together (in a bad way). I expect to have a ton of leaves in the basket of the pump, but there were none. Odd... I backwash, nothing. I rinse, nothing. I filter, nothing. I recirculate, nothing. ARG!!! I finally give up for the night and go to the Norman North/Norman High football game (which is another blog post all together).
Saturday morning, which we will not discuss the beginning of this morning, I get into my game day clothes (BOOMER SOONER!) and head to Thompson's, with this really frustrated look on my face. Zac sees my pitifulness and we talk through all that I did (twice in some cases!) and finally both decide I have a clog. Grrrrrrrrreat. He sends me home with a snake, after explaining how to use it of course. I get home, change into "work on the pool" clothes. I drop the snake in the skimmer. Nothing. I try this a few times and then decide that I'm going to try it at the pump and go backwards. DING! DING! DING! It takes very little time before I hit the blockage. I try a few times and the poor little snake is just not doing the job.
Before I left Thompson's that morning Zac told me to call if I had problems. well, if you know me, you know that I don't always handle frustration with the utmost calmness. So after throwing a few things, screaming and maybe some crying I throw on a dress and head back to Thompson's. Zac meets me in the parking lot (where he had been walking about a customer) and with this wonderful, positive smile asks if I got it. While I appreciate his confidence in my abilities, I was slightly frustrated at this point. I go through my story of what had happened, explain where the clog is, and explain how I almost took a hammer to the plumbing of the pool. Again, with calmness, he explains that you can simply unscrew the top of the valve (where the clog was) and remove the leaves.
Finally my favorite, sympathetic pool expert offers to swing by and help with it! Yay! I was ordered to have fun tailgating. Zac comes by a little later and we get the clog out, no problem. Pool is up and running again!
I proceed to sleep most of the day Sunday and then Monday I vacuum it. I end up with two more clogs, but I am totally an expert at removing (as annoying as it is) the valve. I get it all vacuumed. It is still cloudy. Arg! Tuesday I go in and get some copper algaecide, which I dump in Tuesday evening, along with four bags of shock, at the prescription of Mike. I was also told to backwash in 48 hours, then backwash in another 48 hours, but if the pressure changes to backwash as necessary. I backwash Tuesday (and bake cookies). I backwash Wednesday. I backwash Thursday. I still have a green cloudy pool. Next trip to Thompson's (in a little black dress and stilettos :) and with a TON of homemade cookies in hand) I get a bucket of shock (8 bags worth). After my horrible adventure to Ardmore I come home and dump it in. Friday, still cloudy, still green.
I have also been brushing the pool. I really hate brushing the pool. No I mean I REALLY hate brushing the pool. I am doing it because they tell me to, but geez I hate it. Plus it is hard to do because you can't see what you're brushing. Friday night I was just about at my wit's end. I don't know if it's really getting better or if it's wishful thinking, but I do think it is getting a little better.
Here is where we sit today, after backwashing and brushing:
It is getting bluer, though still pretty cloudy. I have a bit more visibility. We shall see. It's game day though, so I am off to cheer on my Sooners! Tonight I am spending an exciting evening writing a paper about conflict resolution. Maybe I'll discuss my conflict with my pool...
PS
I find it really funny that most of the words dealing with the pool are not in the blogspot spell check...
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