I took Ethel down to a medplex to get her CT scan today, noonish.

They had a three (maybe four?) story parking garage.

And almost every space was marked "Reserved".

And almost every space was empty.

      

Those shiny little blue placards say "Reserved".

I got there at 12:40 - I'm thinking, maybe, they're all gone to lunch. We left at 1:30 - still empty, empty, empty.

It didn't matter that there were several levels of empty reserved slots, and only three or four cars that I saw parked in them - I had to find one that DIDN'T say "Reserved". I've learned my lesson about ignoring signs : )

As far as Ethel's CAT scan went (are a CT scan and a CAT scan the same thing? Okay - yes they are . Now - a grammar conundrum...why, in the above question, do we use the plural form of the verb 'to be'? Since the question is whether or not a CT scan and a CAT scan are the same thing, then - if they are - then, since it's only one thing, shouldn't we say "is" instead of "are"? : )   we don't know the results yet - we're trying to find out if her current discomfort is, indeed, a kidney stone, or something more vague (and possibly worse) - my son, the ER nurse, says that he can spot a kidney stone when it walks in the door, and he says that Ethel doesn't present that way.

I hope that it is a kidney stone, because the nice thing about kidney stones is that they know what to do about them. (FCD story retelling warning....) when my brother Chuck was little, he had a bad respiratory ailment of some sort, which they were unable to get to clear up, and the doctor told my father to put him in icewater (among other reasons, to lower his fever). Dad said "But, Doctor, that'll give him pneumonia!" and the doctor said, "yes, and we can cure pneumonia".

In other news - the solar power folks came this morning and hooked up the pool heater. They say that it will warm the pool by 3-4 degrees per day, which should have it up to the desired 90 F by next Wednesday. I just don't believe that it will work linearly, though - it seems to me that, as the difference between the pool temperature and the end temperature gets lower, then the effect of the heating will reduce. Also, as the daytime temperature of the water increases, the difference between the water temperature and the nighttime air temperature will increase, causing more cooling. Who knows?...maybe the two factors cancel, and it does wind up looking like a linear progression.

I was surprised to find out that most folks choose 90 F as their desired pool temp (and this is what the heater installers tell me, and they should have a good sample size) - I tend to think of a pool in Arizona as a cooling-down mechanism, and I would expect most folks to want to cool down more than that - but, then, the cooling effect of water is much greater than that of air at the same temperature.  I've got a friend from WizKAHNzin who smirks smugly at people who keep their house at 72 F and their pools at 84 F, but the 24 F difference between your skin and a 72 F room temperature doesn't have the convection impact that the 12 F difference between your skin and 84 F water does - the warmer water cools you off faster.

They've also hooked up the water leveler for the lower basin, that being the last bit of hardware that needed to be installed before they pronounce our pool "completed". The electrician will come by tomorrow and finish that bit of work, and then they'll have "Start Up", which means that they'll come out and show us how to work all of these buttons, switches, valves, gizmos and what-nots.