Much nervous laughter ensues.
2006-03-28, 4:19 p.m.

Here's the picture I failed to give you yesterday:

Snatchy love.

I SWEAR that was his exact face. I would not exaggerate anything, EVER. And I do NOT lie here, either.

Ahem. Shortly after I confessed to DW about this here journal, I asked him that question that every right-wing Libertarian man wants to hear: How much of a survivalist are you?

He answered my question with a question: Do you mean if you dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, would I be able to survive?

That was tempting, but I had to clarify that I meant, when society collapses, and electricity ceases to exist, how prepared does he want to be? He started by telling me that THAT was something that he would not be around for, and I won't get all religious on you, but he sincerely believes that The Lard will take care of us, and something biblical is going to happen, and when Bad Times come, we won't be there for it.

I called bullshit promptly, of course: Honey, electricity, and the lack thereof are not mentioned in the Bible anywhere. You're just wishing, and you're going to get mighty thirsty when we can't get water out of our well.

He conceded. Yes, he did. He's even crazier than I am. He admitted that I might be on to something (I get a funny squirmy feeling in my tummy when I think of how much alike we are with our delusions and paranoia), and confessed that he had been researching water-catchment systems to take advantage of our 2000 square feet + of roof area. His reasoning is he wants to be able to water the grass without depleting our well water, but you know, when it comes to NO ELECTRICITY EVER AGAIN, and the hours per day of hand-pumping we would have to do to keep water flowing in our house, every little bit helps.

Do you find it as exciting as I do that we were both secretly scheming to find alternative sources of water? I do, but I am getting ahead of myself here. But really, this is like that Pina Colada song, except different.

I told him that my main worry is having water pressure when our power goes out, and that first and foremost, I want to get our water storage tank (it's big - really, really big, and a very valuable, unused asset) cleaned up and hooked into the well/water softener/pressure tank/house loop. So it would go well/storage tank/water softener/pressure tank/house, just in case you were really interested. I think. Anyway.

The most important thing about having the storage tank doing its job is that you fit it with an outlet that the fire department hooks into, to hose your house down, just in case. We have a VFD road to the well, we have a VFD padlock on the gate - all kinds of access for the fine, local volunteer fire department, but no water except what our well can put out. And when there's a fire, you know, sometimes the power pops off, and then all hell breaks loose BECAUSE WHEN THERE�S NO POWER, THERE�S NO WELL PUTTING OUT.

Water storage tank is all I'm saying. If I ever start some kind of alternative water source business, my motto on my business cards will be "Water Storage Tanks PUT OUT." In fact, I want a bumper sticker that says that, and I want it NOW.*

So after we established how necessary the water storage tank is, I moved on to my hand pump idea. And DW trumped my hand pump and threw out "WINDMILL. We need a windmill." And I came in my pants right there, because not only does he think just like me, he is even scarier, and what could be finer?

The end to our long, happy, scary story is that he's hip to the jive of getting a well service out to the house to get the storage tank rocking, he agrees that it wouldn't hurt to have a way to pull water out of this great, big, mossy green rock we call Earth without electricity, and while a hand pump may be fine and relatively affordable, he's careened past even my level of paranoia to getting a WINDMILL, which I am charged with researching, because he has dial-up at his office in the primordial swamp.

He did ask what we would do with the dogs when the Bad Times come, eat them? Ha ha. No, not at first, I answered.

Did the Ingalls family eat Jack, the brindle bulldog? I think not!

I joked about the subject all weekend long, and told our friends which of them could be included in our survivalist compound: Don, of course (but not Snatchy) because he's family and as a pest controller, is an expert at understanding and trapping varmints (The Varmint Whisperer) and so could be considered a provider of food alternative sources of protein, and the Larrupsons, because they are really good at brewing beer and wine out of just about anything. I told them we would accept others if we could determine that they really had something to offer us, and that everyone should be prepared for several hours of hand pumping per day in order to keep our storage tank topped off.

Much nervous laughter ensues. And now our house is called The Compound.

Speaking of the dogs, and whether to eat them or not, Piper went to the vet yesterday for a booster shot, and when DW asked the vet how big this dog is going to get, the vet simply replied "Big." "Bigger than Beans?" asked DW. "Yes," replied the vet.

We have a pool started at home on how big she's going to be in 3 months: I say 62 pounds, Lil Guy guesses 67, and DW is going for 70. She has gained 8 pounds in the 3 weeks we've had her. Luckily, she�s very sweet and smart and good, so even if she�s 90 pounds, she won't seem like that much dog. Right?

More nervous laughter ensues.

The San Antonio area is experiencing something we haven't had in for-fucking-ever, and that's a rainy day. It's the kind of rainy day that you have to plan for, like "I better go get lunch now while it's stopped raining," and that causes changes in schedules, like "If tennis practice is canceled this afternoon, call me from Granny's house." A water catchment system would come in handy on a day like today. What? I�M JUST SAYIN'.

*I�m not much of a bumper sticker person, but I want one of these, and I want it NOW.