At some point, little mistakes start compounding and a string of them starts to feel like a catastrophic failure. Nothing that went wrong today was actually life-altering. Alone, each thing was barely day-altering. But after a while, I got the feeling I needed to stop and let the day reset. I can try again tomorrow.
We had to give Murray a second, more thorough bath than the one yesterday. When T came over to put Murray in his wheels for me early Friday morning, he accidentally tucked Murray’s tail under the cradle. After a whole day of us not noticing, the friction rubbed a big raw spot on his tail, and by Saturday morning, he had licked all the hair off of that end of it. (He can’t walk or control his eliminations, but he does have some sensation, especially in his skin. He knows when something itches or stings.) He had a light bath Saturday, and another one today. Rather than wait for the sun to warm water from the hose, the idea was to pull a kiddie-pool quantity from the hot tub. When the Mr opened the tub, he asked me whether I’d added anything to the water. I said I had asked T to put in chlorine last time he used it, but I didn’t know whether he did. The water was murky and smelled off (kind of swampy, kind of like feet). Mr S-P sprayed out the filters with some high pressure from the hose, while I pushed to just drain the whole thing and start fresh. It took me four tries to get the little hose to siphon correctly, but eventually it did. I let it drain into the yard, between the grill and the nectarine tree. It took most of the afternoon, but eventually it emptied. I wiped down the gunky sides with a microfiber washcloth, and used a towel to suck up as much from the bottom as I could, after the hose stopped working.
Before we started to refill, I grilled out our dinner, making the mistake of walking through the super slick mud I had just created, coating my pool sandals in earth and god knows how much Murray stuff that had ever soaked into that area. I stood over my brats on the grill, making unbroken eye contact with the squirrel who grabbed one of my tiny nectarines and ate half of it, staring at me, before he dropped it on the ground and went to another. You’d think they would be less rude, considering the bounty of food we provide the little boogerheads.
It got dark halfway through refilling the tub. I wanted to keep an eye on it, so I flipped the breaker back on to turn on the color changing LED lights. The control panel reset, and the recirc pump turned on before it was time. Air was in the system, and it chugged out pretty bubbles for several minutes while I tried to figure out how to shut it back off without flipping the breaker again. Eventually I called for help, and the Mr used the hose to push air out of the pump. I hope I didn’t damage anything. Then I went inside, thinking I had ages until it would be full. Next time I checked, the level was too high, almost to the valves that control the jets. We drained off another kiddie pool full, in anticipation of another Murray bath tomorrow.
I thought I’d unwind from all of my mishaps by settling down with my favorite single malt scotch (Bunnahabhain). I’ve only ever had the one bottle of it, the one I got to christen closing on the original Smith Park in Charleston. (I don’t drink often or in quantity anymore.) I twisted the cap, and it broke off in my hand, half of the cork remaining in the bottle. A corkscrew was no good. It was old and fragile and stuck to the neck. I had to use a vegetable peeler to pry it loose, and a kitchen strainer over our glasses for the cork chunks that fell in. Luckily there were only about three shots left in the bottle, so we drained it. I didn’t have to find a replacement cork. I did add a couple of ice cubes (don’t criticize!) and by the end of it, the errors of my day seemed much less annoying. Slàinte mhath.
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