Sunday, December 27, 2009

A Name for the Beep, and....MERINGUE!!!!

With the beep from the spa now reaching four days in not seeing the futility of calling out for someone, I'm thinking of naming it. It's become a household companion, though it's far quieter from inside the house. But it's ever-present, just like Tigger and Kitty.

"Annoying Fucking Noise" doesn't work because it doesn't annoy me as much as it did Mom when she was near the patio door and heard it for a few seconds.

Nothing related to the sound. Not "Beepy" or "Beepie," not "Incessant-Lee" (purposely written that way), not "Relentless." I'm thinking of "Jimson" (for this, not related to the weed; I just like the name) or, well, I don't know. Something else might come to mind later, but that's all I have right now.

I don't know how the spa operates when it's off. The jets obviously aren't running. They're clogged. But I think they actually try to work at various intervals during the day. It's got to be the leaves, though. The cold weather last year did not cause the spa to bubble up enough to have a layer of meringue. When I was out on the patio with the dogs this afternoon, that's what it looked like, complete with fluffy peaks.

It is a nice diversion from the brown hills struggling to be green, and the mountains on either side of the freeway. I think it actually is one of the most interesting sights in my six and 1/4 years here. Better than the same SUVs from Stevenson Ranch with the same soccer moms. Better than the same gaggle of bothersome, nosy seniors gathering on the same street corner every day with their dogs. I need to disturb them one day by emphatically waving at them when I leave the complex for some errand. I can't forget that before we move.

I'm Broken, But I Don't Beep Like That

For the past two days, an incessant beeping. No one else noticed when it began because their windows and kitchen doors and sliding doors leading to their patios are closed tight against the cold. Same during the day. Still, the beep. I noticed it because the dogs do what they need to on our patio. I stand out there, making sure they go, and I heard this.

Is it coming from the utility closet to the left of the neighborhood pool, behind the signs with all the rules that people ignore, yet seem to follow? Is it some alarm clock that refuses to shut off, even if the plug is pulled, even if the batteries still powering it are taken out? Creepy, but no. Neither of these.

It's from the circular spa a few feet diagonal from the bottom left corner of the pool. A few days ago, or maybe just a bit longer than that, we had fierce winds that grabbed leaves from the trees and threw them into the pool, also into the hot tub. Filters or pipes must have become clogged, setting off this beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. I'm guessing the spa also tried to foam up a bit because that's on the surface of the water now, more of it than usual.

Two days, becoming three. None of us nearby residents can get to it to do anything (not that we know how to anyway), because after the Homeowners Association deemed poolgoing season to be over for the year, back in late October, they put a lock on the security gate that none of us residents have a key for. This started on Christmas Day, so obviously, no one would have done anything because of the holiday. It's not that bothersome anyway. But that beep. It's demanding. I wonder how that meeting went to decide the alert mechanism for immediate repair. How does someone decide on that type of sound? Is there a company that specializes in that and sent a catalog for that particular company to decide on what sound they wanted? I've got problems in this life, as everyone pretty much does, and I want that too. Send me that catalog!

However, I am truly eternally grateful that whomever was in charge of installing that spa did not choose Jim Carrey's "Most Annoying Sound in the World" from Dumb & Dumber.

I'd be surprised if anyone left a message on the HOA's voicemail to fix this. These aren't the kind of residents who care about their neighborhood. The biddies, with their yapping dogs, keep an annoying watch on the neighborhood, but the particularly annoying ones nearby don't live close enough to the spa to hear the beeping. I'd expect it not to be fixed until the spring, unless they actually need the guy who sifts leaves from the pool to come earlier to do just that. Maybe he knows something, or they know someone else for it.

This is my neighborhood. Feel that excitement. That, and Christmas light "icicles" put up without imagination. And not even the ones that look icy. Strings of white lights hanging over the tops of garages do not count. Why can't the biddies just get a ladder from their garages and breathe on that section of their roof? They'd have real ones right away.