Gunite. If You Want Me, You Had Better Email!

There are these neighbors.   I can't say I know them at all.   They moved into the big house on the block and proceeded to settle in.  

They began to make changes to their house this week.   They wanted a pool.

Why?

I don't know, you folks who don't live in South Florida have this idea about living here.   Come home from work, crack a cold one, toss the burgers on the grill, then cool off in the pool?

Reality is that a pool is a lot of work.  I've been in mine this week but only because I had the weed eater out and hacked the daylights out of the yard.  Eco-destruction is hard work.

Yes, I know, you lot call it landscaping.   I call it slash and burn agriculture.

All the same thing!

When I heard that the new and somewhat standoffish neighbors were putting in a pool, I joked "We should have just sold them a DayPass to the back yard.  Sheesh, are they nuts?".

More folks who have that idea about what a Florida Yard should be.

Earlier this week excavation started.   I immediately went out and dropped traffic cones in the parking space out front.  Irrigation pipes run close to the street, you really don't want someone running over PVC pipe with an SUV.

The cones were there through the digging.   First day the noise started, but I managed.   Second day, I looked fondly at the Noise Cancelling Headphones and said to myself that Disco on Headphones would be real nice.

We're on Day Five.

Tuesday was the day that they started to turn the open pit excavation into something that would hold water.   A layer of concrete got pumped in.   I listened to Trance that day. 

Too much rain to work while the concrete cured on Wednesday so I got a lot done.

Thursday ... oh my Thursday.

That was when the trucks started arriving.  White dump truck.  White compressor truck.  More black SUVs.  There was a herd of people who were starting to do a job for the day.  A cooler of beer appeared and one shirt got taken off.

No, you really should put your shirt back on.   Seriously.

Then the sounds started.

A compressor half the size of a tractor trailer makes a lot of noise.   Constant grumble along with a rapid fire tickticktick sound.  That compressor pumps the Gunite to the back yard of the house that squats on the once empty lot.  The Gunite is a combination of a sandy material combined with some solvents and adhesives.   They're mixed together and perhaps stained blue.  Blue is traditional, although I have to wonder why not darker blue instead of the Aqua that the ocean is down here.  The water would be nicer in winter.

When the windows began to rattle, I reached for the headphones.  Eventually I got through my normal routine, as well as answering emails and beginning to work on an Email blast that I am the manager for.

All the while the disco was drowning out the noise from across the street.

This morning we went through the same set up routine.   Trucks began arriving at the appointed hour, a large plastic tarp covered the street, giant trucks including that big compressor came.  

I was armed and ready today.  The battery was topped off on my old iPhone.  I had a fresh battery in the headphones to power the noise cancelling circuitry.  I went into the bedroom and found the earplugs.

I literally could not hear a blessed thing other than the normal tinnitus and blood rushing in and out of my ears.   I knew that there was noise going on out there because my faithful sidekick Rack had ran out of the room and put himself in the crate.

When I settled in I put the iPhone and the headphones together and turned on the Disco Party.

I can't hear a blessed thing outside of these headphones.   The world has spiraled down to a laptop, the thump thump of a 4/4 beat, and my own thoughts.

So, if you want me, I'm at home, rocking to the beat in my Poang chair.   No, I can't hear the phone ring.  That's the Android phone, the one I prefer to the iPhone, and I can't hear the bell inside my little electronic and plastic cocoon.

Just email.  It's easier.