As of Friday afternoon, the pool has water in it.

Here's the view from inside my home office, looking towards the northwest:

       

Ethel's got a lot more pix in her photo gallery on FaceBook, but this is Fat Charlie's Diary, not Ethel's Diary : )

This view is aimed towards the edge of the pool, showing the negative edge effect off to the left (most of that negative edge is hidden behind the big brown column) - off to the right you can see the waterfall. There's a much better view of the waterfall from my office, but the pool people hadn't come out to do startup on the pool on Friday, so the waterfall isn't running yet - when it is, I'll post that picture as well.

The pool people are supposed to come out today and start up the pumps and such, and then - after a couple of days - give us a class in how to work things. At that point, we'll be able to do neat stuff like run the solar heater and turn on the LED pool light (does like 400 different colors) and keep the water flowing over the edge - in addition, we'll be able to run the pool through the filter so that (for instance, as a totally random, hypothetical example) a thick matted layer of black Labrador Retriever hair doesn't cover the surface of the pool...anymore.

Ethel's having a rough time of it - some sort of kidney troubles, as yet undiagnosed. I wish that that were not the case - not only for the obvious reason of I-don't-want-my-wife-to-be-sick, but for the more superficial silly reason of I-want-her-to-be-able-to-enjoy-her-new-pool.  Before long, it won't be a matter of "enjoyng" the pool - it will be a matter of jumping into the pool to keep from bursting into flame. But this has been a very temperate spring (we haven't even hit 100 F yet) so a pool is still an optional luxury.

I'm having a rough time of it, myself - the recent motorcycle crash, and the aftermath, have caused me to start growing hair again. Shaving one's head - going for the bad-and-bald look - is one thing, if you're a fearless biker dude who's pulling onto the freeway on his V-twin blatblat bike, wearing full leathers after running fifteen miles and lifting for two hours.

The bad-and-bald look, however, doesn't work if you're a wimpy 51-year-old milquetoast who can't run or lift, is scared to ride a motorbike because he might get hurt,  and who drives a sub-compact.  So I'm letting the hair grow back in.

Before long, I'm going to start wearing a polka-dotted bow tie and a nice librarian-type jewelry chain to keep my glasses on.