Pool Purrs

Le Tone Françoise

2012-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

“Oh, no!” PP laughs as she reaches across to open her locker. “Here we are all in the same corner when the whole locker room is empty. This always happens, doesn’t it?”
Sexy French Swimmer shrugs, moves her stuff aside. “It is not a problem,” she murmurs philosophically.
“Guess it is a good spot,” PP continues as she pulls her clothes out and starts to lotion up.

“The water today....” SFS sighs. “It was very nice, don’t you think? The temperature. It was good, no?”
Actually, PP thought it was a bit on the chilly side, but then she always does. No need to interfere with someone else’s Swimmer’s Bliss. So she lies: “Oh, yes, it was lovely.”

“And the pool, it was not crowded,” SFW continues in her dreamy sexy accent.
“Yeah, at first, when I got here, there was someone in every lane, but it worked out okay,” PP nods. “We got our own lanes even with the Rusty Hinges taking up 2 of them.”

“The other day!” SFS suddenly exclaims, her Bliss vanishing. “You would not believe it!” If Incensed were personified, SFS would be IT. “I go to get into a lane to share with this woman and she stops and you know what she say to me?”

PP starts to answer, but there’s no pause: Rhetorical French Narrative at work. “She say: ‘Don’t you want to go to That Other LANE!’ And I say, what do you mean? The other lane! She say again, and she say it like that....'SFS spits out the words, disdain dripping from her. "And I don’t know what she is talking about. When I get in I look around before I take my glasses off and see that all the lanes are full. And then, I take my glasses off and go to get in this woman’s lane and she says this to me: 'DON’T you want to get in THAT lane! It is empty!' She say it like THAT!” SFS repeats again, her pretty nostrils flaring. Really.

PP knows this is serious Lane Sharing Business. Something that they all hate doing, sharing a lane, but then again, it’s the Y and here at Hilltopia, one often gets one's own lane. So to just split a lane, while not ideal, really isn’t so bad compared to some pools.

“Do you know what I mean?” SFS asks PP now. “It was the way that she said it. She could have just said, ‘Oh, do you see? There is a lane empty?' Or she could have said, ‘I think that the lane next is empty. Maybe you would like to swim there? But nooooooo! She says it like THAT!”
“It was her Tone,” PP offers.

“YES!” SFS jumps on this. “It was Her Tone! She did not have to say it like that! I could not see. I take my glasses off to swim and then I can not tell.”

PP nods. Earlier, SFS had gotten in the lane next to PP’s and PP had given her a hearty ‘Hi’ since they often chatted, but SFS had just nodded, barely said ‘Hello’ like she hadn’t recognized her.
Now PP knew why.
Glasses.

“I never woulda thought of that,” PP says now. “I mean about the glasses.”
“Oh!” SFS laughs, shrugs. “That is because you do not wear them.”
“I wear them sometimes, but only for reading,” PP laughs. “I resist them because of the aging.”
SFS shakes her head. “It is not because of the aging,” she says, missing PP’s point entirely? Which is that PP resists the aging process or the idea of it at every turn and breaking down and wearing bifocals is just one of her ways of denial. But maybe SFS is younger than PP? Or the French are just way too cool to worry about such things?

“The glasses are for the Visual,” she asserts. Obviously. Anyone could see this. Why didn't PP?
“Of course,” PP agrees, feeling a bit vain and old. Or is her meaning just lost in translation?

Or is it, again, all about Tone?

Yes, that’s it. The French, like the Italians,(now that PP has spent 3 weeks in Italy, she's an expert--oh and she watches lots of Italian movies too!) are all about Tone. If you want to get across an opinion, you say it with that Certain Tone that will communicate your meaning no matter what the language. Disdain. Joy. Bitterness.

Sophia Loren, in Marriage Italian Style, had no difficulty communicating her bitterness to Marcello Mastroianni. PP got it without the subtitles even. Plus Mastroianni was such a stereotypical Italian Philandering Husband that who needs the exact words when Sophia tells him to F***$$^^? off? She says that with her Tone.

And today, SFS, too, says it with her Tone. Her Tone of disdain for the Stupid Lane Sharing Woman. Her Tone of nonchalance with the aging process. Her Tone of delight when PP asks her her name and then mispronounces it.

“You will not remember it,” she laughs as they run out into the rain, so wonderful after the horrid drought of the last few months.
“But it has a ‘yes’ in it!” PP jokes. “Yes I will remember!”
“See you later, PP!” SFS calls out as she hurries to her car.
And PP can’t help but detect a tone of warmth in her au revoir.
Oui?
Si?
Yes!

Piscina, Poetry and Penance in Roma

2012-01-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

I

“Buon Giorno?” PP greets her, hesitating. She is, of course, in the middle of feeding cats. Oh, Roma, the City of Gatti! They’re everywhere, including here at the Cimitero acattolico, aka the Non-Catholic Cemetery. PP and DHBF have stumbled upon it looking for what else? A pool.

“C’mere!” DHBF had called PP over to the computer to show her, what else? A map! “There should be a pool here.....” He shoves the pretty green and yellow map on the screen at her. “Google says it’s only a 21 minute walk from here,” he beams.
PP eyes the map dubiously. Google is so not her idea of a trustworthy source even though everyone else on the planet thinks it’s God.
“21 minutes?” she asks. “Ummm....”
“Yeah! Isn’t that great?”
“Sure, if it’s true. But maybe we should just walk over there first to make sure it’s really there before luggin all of our swim stuff around like we did in Venice.”
“That makes perfect sense,” DHBF nods. “You ready?”
“Guess so.”

PP had tried to stifle any excitement. After the disappointment over the pool in Venice she didn’t want to get her hopes up here in Roma, but it would be so very cool if the pool were this close.

45 minutes later they stand in the Cemetery for Non-Catholics asking the Cat Woman where the pool is. She tries to help as a rotund calico clamors for her kibble. “Piscine?” she repeats. Then launches into a stream of Italian Pool Directions. PP and DHBF shake their heads. “No, no. No parle Italiano. Parle Englise?”
She shakes her head, “No...no....” as the Calico knocks a forkful of tuna out of her hand.
Somehow she communicates that the pool is next to the nursery they’d walked past already by making a flower shape with her hands –plus the Italian for flower is close to English. PP can’t remember the word now of course, but trust her, it is.

So....okay, this is good. They go back to the nursery and the pool will be right there and.....

PP has to go to the bathroom. She has to see Keats and Shelley and Gregory Corso before she heads off on the pool quest.

She does all of the above, noting the lovely verse on Corso’s gravestone:

Dubious though still of their ability to actually find the pool, she sighs. They’re all gonna end up in the water again anyway---why does she have to practice so much while she’s living?

“Hey! There’s an information place here,” DHBF lights up. He loves Visitor Centers. Once, when they were on a weekend trip up in the Gold Country he went to the VC to find a hike and this was how they found the smoking mini volcanoes. But that’s another blog.
Here they’ve found pyramids and poetry.
Would the VC know where the pool was?

“Buon Giorno!” DHBF calls out as they pop into the center filled with poetry, calendars, postcards and cats.
“Parle Englise?”
“A lot!” An affable gent grins. Turns out he’s from the Bay Area, San Rafael even. And so, DHBF hits it off with him immediately. He’s got an Italian sidekick at the computer who looks up the pool address and yup, it’s just up the street by the nursery like Gatto Chicka had said.
“Did you see Corso’s grave?” San Rafael Man asks.
“Yes, we did. I didn’t realize he was buried here in Rome,” PP answers.
“Yup. If you go on YouTube you can see him wandering the City streets. Course by that time he had a bottle of beer in his hand 24/7.” He shakes his head sadly.
PP nods. It is sad. But then again, Corso did end up in Roma next to Keats. That seems perfecto.
“Grazie for the pool info,” she thanks them.
“Sure, no problem. Good luck,” San Rafael Man waves good-bye.

II

PP stands at the rail on the balcony above the chaotic pool that only Roma would have. It’s packed with swim team kids of various ages, ranging from maybe 8 to 14? (She is terrible with kids’ ages) There are 6-8 kids in a lane. They’re swimming backstroke in frantic crooked lines. A coach follows them on deck, hollering commands at them that PP can’t understand since they’re in Italian. But she’s been where those kids are. “Get the lead out Jameson! Let’s see some hustle there!”
Shit.
How the hell did she ever do sports? Those kids all look like they’re swimming for their lives. And here in the country where relaxation and la dolce vita are king.
Not in the pool!

It’s a cute little pool. Indoors. 4 lanes. 25 yards. But already, PP knows that this probably isn’t gonna work. The place seems like a private club and she’s just not up for paying 25 euros to swim again (not that she paid it in Florence thanks to her sister. But sis was back in Torrance and besides, PP wouldn’t expect her to pay again.)

Hell. Weren’t there any goddamn public pools in Italy?
There must be. Just not on Google. Or wherever this Internet swim site connection is.

She lingers on the balcony for a moment with all the parents and little brothers and sisters that aren’t in the pool. It would be so nice to come back and swim laps without all the kids, she thinks.

But it was not to be. The woman at the counter shows them the schedule. The price? 130 euros for 4 months.
“Can’t I just come swim once?” PP asks, knowing the answer.
She shakes her head, “No, no....sorry.”
“Do you know of another pool we could try in the area?”
“You could try Roma Uno,” she offers, but they may need Medical Certificate, I don’t know.”
Medical Certificate? PP doesn’t even ask, but gets the address from her and they head out back onto the busy blvd.

III

PP doesn’t even have the energy to document Roma Uno. But she will muse on the Medical Certificate Aspect of it since it’s so weird.

This is a fact. Some sort of doctor’s official certificate must be brought back to Roma Uno if she wants to pay the 30 euros to swim there. (Yes, this is the price and at least it would be possible to swim here barring the medical obstacle.)

What could this be?
“They just don’t want all of us Foreign Tourists bringing in nasty diseases from around the globe to contaminate their pool,” DHBF offers.
“Like what?” PP asks, puzzled. “AIDS? Cholera? What kinds of communicable diseases are spread in pools?”
“Leprosy!” DHBF laughs.
“Leprosy” PP giggles. “That must be it! All of the Swimming Romans are afraid that we’re going to give them leprosy in the pool and all of their bella limbs are going to fall off and they won’t be able to wear their high heels anymore!”

They both laugh. It is funny. Leprosy.
But yet, this does mean that PP has no pool to report on in Roma. Other than these two pools that were not meant to be.

“The Vatican has a pool,” DHBF suggests. “We could try that when we go there tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding?” PP laughs. “I’m not swimming at the Vatican.”
“Why not?”
She pauses. Good question. Why indeed.
That night, before their big day at the Vatican, PP pictures all of those nuns floating in the pool, their habits billowing in the blue blue water. Their heavy shoes sinking down into the watery depths.

It’d be a good story, to swim at the Vatican.
But not this trip. It’s just too much to try to find another pool. PP can’t handle the disappointment anymore.
Even though a swimming nun would be fun, wouldn’t she?

Piscina Venizia

2012-01-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Cliché as it is, Italy is a country of superlatives: the creamiest gelato; the highest heels (and the shortest skirts!); the oldest ruins and the Smartest Cars. However, there's the flip side to this, too. The wrongest toilettes; the grossest tea; and the scarcest piscini!

Italy is this especially: Frustrating! When it comes to swimming, your best bet is as a duck in the Tiber! Yet, PP is nothing if not stubborn. Hence, her search for pools in Italy after her fantastico success in Florence:

Piscene Comunale Saint a'Lvise. Calle del Capitello, Cannargegio. 3163

PP tingles with excitement as she begins reading aloud the Fodor's description:

“Venice's newest swimming pool is set in peaceful Carnnaregio and offers lessons and swimming sessions (PP has to admit that these 'swimming sessions' seemed suspect. What the hell could a swimming session entail? She pictures screaming children with doting mothers surrounded by harried swim instructors barking Italian); there's a warm mini pool for smaller children (oh, so maybe the swim sessions might be for adults?); and remember you will have to wear a swimming cap in the water and flip flops to walk from the changing rooms to the pool. No credit cards accepted. M, W, F 1-2:30, 9:30-10:45.” (Fodor's 'See it' Venice, 2011)

Grinning, PP beams over at DHBF. “Is it close? Can we walk?”

“Let me look at the map,” he answers (As if PP didn't know this would be his response. Actually, it's a good thing one of them can read a map. She sure as hell can't) “Yup, it's right in the neighborhood. Let me show you.”

He stretches the pretty blues, greens and golden boxes with thin black lines out toward her. She makes a face. “I believe you. Let's go! It says it's open at 1:00 and today's Wednesday.”

“I don't have any flip flops or swimming cap,” he laments.
“I have a cap you can use and there must be flip flops around here somewhere.”
He brightens, “Paolo has all those 'slippers' for us—I'll just borrow a pair. But will my hair fit in the cap?”
PP laughs. “Of course. They're stretchable. Let's go!”
And so they do, packing up the flip flops, the fins, the towels and caps and heading toward Calle del Capitello.

It is so close!

PP can barely contain her excitement. What if the pool is really this close as they near their destination after only a 5 minute walk? And it's only Wednesday and they're here in Venice for 3 more days. That means they can swim 3 days this week. Perfecto!

Rounding the corner, after winding along another canal, they come upon the designated street and trudge down the spooky alley. PP realizes that she's supposed to be entranced by Venice and its canals and alleyways, but in fact, she finds them creepy and cold. At least there are no crowds of tourists here. Evidently, tourists don't swim. PP is the only crazy one who has to go in quest of pools no matter where she travels.

They find a building that houses the Civic Centro of Venice. Okay looks promising. Inching tentatively through the decrepit doorway, they make their way in. “This looks like a pool might be in here, don't you think?”she asks DHBF.
“Yup,” he nods, craning his neck upward to take in all the sights.

She peers inside the large glass windows of the ancient yellow building, spying what looks like a tutoring session. “Umm....Italian lessons?” she laughs. “Wonder if the pool is behind there?”
DHBF frowns, “No, I think we're in the wrong place. This isn't the right address. We’re supposed to be at 3163. This is 3160. It must be back out and down at the next building.”

Shivering, PP nods, heading back out of the compound, leaving a lone dog walker in the forlorn garden. Venice is a dog town. They've yet to meet even one gatto.

“MEOW!!! Meow... meow!” she hears, coming up behind her.
“A kitty!” PP exclaims. “It's about time for gatti! How perfecto that the first cat we've seen is on our way to the pool. He must be our mascot to the piscene!”
“MRROOOW!” the tabby cries again, wondering if she's brought any kibble in her swim bag.
“Where's the pool, kitty?” she asks as they head down to the end of the alley, Venice Tabby leading the way.
“Here's the address,” DHBF stops in front of a locked gate, weeks' old mail spilling out of the box. PP picks it up (What is the fine for sorting through official city centro mail she wonders?) all addressed to Piscene, 3163 Calle del Capitello.

“Looks like this mail's been here for weeks,” she sighs, reality sinking in. It was just too good to be true. To find a pool so close to their place in Venice. But yet, it was only 12:00; maybe if they came back at 1:00, it'd be open.
She suggests this to DHBF, who shrugs, “Sure, we can try that. What do you want to do?”
“Get cappucini of course.” What else? When in Rome as they say.

And so they do. And coffee is delicious. And the cafe is cute. But the whole time she's thinking how the pool just did NOT look like it was going to open in an hour.
But hell. This was Italy. Things aren't what they seem. Maybe the Italians just haven't picked up their mail.
Yeah, sure, this is a possibility.

And so down with the cappuccino, hope still in her heart with the ingestion of caffeine. Why even a half decent bathroom she could use. Then back to the pool.

“Mreeow mreeow!” Mr. Tabby's still waiting for his kibble.
“Hey, Kitty,” she squats down in front of the still padlocked pool entry gate. “Looks like the pool is closed for the season.”
“Yes,” DHBF agrees. “Remember how in Florence many of the pools we called weren't open till Jan 6th or 9th?”
“But we'll be in Roma by then,” she whines.
“Maybe we'll find a pool there,” he soothes.
“Maybe.....”

PP is disappointed, naturally. But then Roma awaits. A city of infinite possibilities.

In such a city, there must be a pool for her.
Right?
Right!

Piscine Firenze Fantastico

2012-01-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

“No…no….” He shakes his head softly. His brown grey locks waving round his handsome Italian mug.

PP stands on deck, holding the offending negatives. Her fins. Why all the ‘no’s’ around her fins? “I can’t use the fins?” she asks, trying not too hard to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

Of course, it’s always something weirdly wrong when one swims in a foreign country. Italy is no exception. Florence would be particularly so, she’d assumed. She just hadn’t known what.

Until it happened.
No fins.
Shit.

Here’d she’d lugged the fins all the way from California only to be told by Mr. Sexy No Lifeguard that they were not allowed.

Her sister shrugs, smiles. “Oh well,” and then heads for the pool.

It’d been a treat! PP’s sister throwing Euro Caution to the wind to take her swimming in Florence. $25 euros for each of them. A total of over $50! “It’ll be your Christmas present,” PP’s sister had exclaimed back at the apt in Florence.

And so, PP had relented, stifling her ordinarily stingy side. Hell, when would she be back in Florence again? With her sister? And a pool?
Never.

“It’s on the 37 bus line,” her sister had proclaimed.
“Fun!” PP had laughed. “A bus ride to the pool to the Real Florence.” Meaning one not crammed with tourists and students.

Florence was not PP’s favorite Italian city. She was here visiting her favorite person, though, her niece, studying Roman History. This niece, though, was not a swimmer.

Her sister? A most generous swimmer patron!

Which was a fantatsitco thing since PP needed a swim most desperately. Sure all the walking to all of the sights of Florence had been stupendous. The Piazza at Michelangelo being her favorite with a view of the city that took her breath away.
Yet a swim is what PP needed. Just as the weird cartoon character in Megamind announces at the end of the movie after diving into a random fountain, “I feel so much better now. Guess all I needed was a swim!”

And so now, at the Centro Firenze Piscine, PP is in heaven, even without the fins. The water is a lovely 84 degrees at least. She and her sister have their own lane.

Before diving in,they'd received the 'lane education' ala Italiano:“Parle Englise?” PP had asked Sexy No Lifeguard.
“A little.”
“How do the lanes work?”
“Blue it is for slow. Yellow it is for medium. Red it is for Fast.”
Of course, Red is for fast. Perfecto.

PP and her sister choose a Blue Lane, esp. now that PP was deemed finless.
This is okay for a little while, esp. as the pool is warm. But after a half hour or so, she’d switched to a kickboard: “All the equipment here,” SNL had gestured magnanimously at the bins of kick-boards, pull buoys, floatation devices, “these you can use.”

PP had pulled out a kickboard and pull buoy, happy with this equipment, but still wondering why the hell she couldn’t use the fins.

Swimming in the blue blue water even though the pool was indoors (the tiles of the pools side and bottom were dark turquoise)PP kept thinking that maybe she could sneak the fins on. Swim under his radar. But no way. He made the rounds. Watching all the swimmers. Making sure that her fins were safely on the side of the pool.
So no Fin Sneaking for PP in Florence.

Her sister finished swimming first. A happy tired grin on her pretty goggled face. “I’m about spent,” she’d announced just as another ‘blue’ swimmer climbed into their lane,a serious elderly Italian woman, compact and slow, kicking up and down the lane.
“How far did you swim?” PP asks her sis.
“I did 2000.”
“Fantastico!” PP laughs. “I think I’m almost there. Though without the fins, it’s pretty slow going.”

Yet she completes the 2000 and then a couple 100 more. It’s so delicious to be in the pool. In the water. Swimming. And in Florence of all places. Who would have thought that a pool could be found in the perimeters of this medieval city?

They’d found it fairly easily, getting off the bus and heading for a building that looked to house a piscine. A lamb greeted them at the front door as two Italian teenagers played with a motorized helicopter.

“Piscine?” PP had asked as a round Italian woman in a white pharmacist’s coat opened the door for them.
“No, no…” she shook her head, pointed across the street. No English and why should there be? They were in Italy after all; but she was able to communicate where the pool was.
Across the busy blvd, down a quiet side street, they found the Club Firenze.

“Parle Englise?” PP’s sister had asked the Sexy Italian women at the front counter. Nope, no English as they signed the release form entirely in Italian. Who the hell knew what it said. PP didn’t care. She saw the pool and she was about to swim in Italy!
Fantasitico!

But back to the pool. After the swim, PP just had to find out. Why the hell couldn’t she use her fins?

Approaching Sexy No Lifeguard, she grins at him. He nods, smiling shyly. “I just wanted to ask,” she begins, “why is it that I couldn’t use my fins?”

He nods, seriously, then holds out his manly arm. “We do not allow anything that may do harm. No watches.” He grips his wrist. “No ….”
He pauses, makes a motion to draw a paddle shape over his hands, “Paddles?” PP offers. “Yes… and no fins.”

“Ah, okay,” PP nods, “that makes sense. Grazie.” She makes an expansive American Italian Gesture, “Fantasitico, Bellismo Piscine!” she pronounces, waving at the pool.
He laughs, nods. Americans. They are too hilarious.

And the Italians?

PP has the sense that in fact they may be, at least where this one pool is concerned, a very cautious people. They don’t want to harm their fellow swimmers. They are very considerate.

This seems to go against some of the stereotypes that surround Italians as outgoing, boisterous, passionate people.

As swimmers, they aren’t. They’re reserved, serious, and considerate.

Something PP thinks the swimmers back in the States could learn from.
Viva Italians! Viva Italy Piscene! Viva Sisters!

Arividerchi Richmond

2011-12-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Since PP has had negative writing time for the last several weeks, and she’s leaving for Italy imminently, she’s going to summarize the highlights or give the highlights or offer summaries....Hell, you know what she means.

Here’s 3 PP stories that never got written:

I.

Russian Cat Lady

PP has been in a dither about what to do with her cats while she’s in the Old Country. “You don’t want to leave him out in the cold, poor baby,” Sandy declares after PP explains her dilemma about the cat peeing in the house when she’s gone; the raccoons intruding the house if the cat door’s left open; the bitter cold and rain if he's left outside for 3 weeks.

From her left, PP hears her. The Scoff. As she finishes up her naked downward dog in Utopia. The scorn in her scoff is as thick as her accent, “Cooold? You think this is cold?” She turns sideways, stretching a round white limb over her head, “In Russia, the cats. They are outside all of the time. They know cold. Here, it is not cold.”

“Very true,” Sandy nods, “but you can’t turn a housecat into an outdoor cat even in Northern California.”
“How do the cats in Russia do it?” PP asks. “Do they have extra thick Russian Cat Fur?”
Russian Cat Lady eyes PP for a moment, serious, considering just how much Russian Cat Lore to divulge.
“Those cats, in Russia, they are outside. But....” she pauses; it’s here that PP knows Something Bad happens to Those Russian Cats. She doesn't want to hear it. RCL intuits this. Russians: They are Intuition. At least according to Tolstoy. Or maybe it's just according to PP.

Sandy leaps in, “Yeah, well, I’m sure that those Russian Cats are Some Bad Ass Cats. They don’t let a little cold get them down.”
RCL nods, lets loose a little smile.
“Yes, they are...Bad Ass Cats. That is very good way to describe.”
She sighs deeply, picks up her towel and saunters out of the sauna.

DL’s eyes are wide as she inhales her pale shapeliness. Later, when PP brings up RCL, DL just grins, “She was stupendous.”

II.
My Lifeline

“Oh, Baby, it feel so good in here!”
PP nods, sighing inside Hilltopia after another ‘cold’ swim. Not as cold as Russia, she’s sure, but for her, if the pool isn’t at least 84 in the middle of December, well...it’s cold!

“I been in that water for a whole hour,” she chuckles, letting her cane fall on the bench as she plops down.

PP had seen her in the pool. In the walking lane. Her bright blue turban matching her royal blue suit. A large white bandage on the side of her sunken below the color bone area. The brown skin withered and ancient around the band-aids.

PP thinks she musta just had some surgery and she was in the pool for her water therapy. Post Surgery Walkers love the walking lane at Hilltopia.
“An hour!” PP exclaims, impressed. She can never last that long. Gets way too cold.
“Ummm....yes ma’am. And then I was up on them machines for a hour and half.”
“Wow! That’s amazing!”

“Ouch!” Hour Walker cries, reaching up to her face and pulling at her ear. “That gets so Hot in here! My earring.”
“Oh, no!” PP eyes her anxiously, “I bet. You okay?”
“Oh, yeah, don’t you worry. I be fine. I just need to tuck it up here offa my neck and then it don’t bother me none.....my little granddaughter, she tell me, 'Grandmamma. Just take it nice and slow.'” She laughs softly, shaking her head.

“She’s got it right,” PP says, still worried that she’s going to have to peel some hot metal off of this frail grandma’s neck.
“There! That’s it!” She sighs, sits back against the wall, pats her band-aid. “And my arthritis. That can be the clincher!”

“Do you ever take that Arthritis Water exercise class?” PP asks. “Rusty Hinges?”
She laughs, “No, baby, I can’t do none of that. I gotta keep my self dry here.” She pats the band-aid, thick and white and clean and dry.
“I’m on dialysis. This here is My Lifeline. I can’t get it wet.”
“Oh, of course not,” PP murmurs, wondering how the hell people do it. Here she is complaining about the pool being a less than ideal temperature and other people. On dialysis. Shit.
“Yes, 13 hours a day,” she nods, closing her eyes.
Did she really say 13 hours a day? PP can’t remember now, but it was a lot of time and she seemed so blissful about it.
Pool Therapy. Will do it every time.
And for PP, as you all know, it’s her Lifeline.

III

Happy Christmas

“Oh, my that’s a pretty suit! You mind if I ask you where you got it? I been looking all over for a suit and I just for the life of me can’t find one near as pretty as that one. I went over to Big 5 cuz I thought, well they’re a sporting good store and swimming is a sport and I did find one that I liked, but it was a used one and I just didn’t’ think that was right for me,” she finishes, giggling softly, her round brown belly jelly between her silver brassiere and black panties.

PP had never heard about used suits at Big 5. In fact, she thought that this must be wrong, but hell, she wasn’t gonna question it. Maybe they do sell used suits at Big 5 and she just didn’t know about it.

In any case, Round Belly Woman was right about one thing. A used swimsuit is wrong.

“I’m not sure where this suit is from,” PP answers the original query instead. “A friend of mine got if for me. I think she goes to Ross.”

RBW nods, “Ross, okay. That’s a good idea. I didn’t think of them.”
“Yeah, but I dunno, it’s winter now and they may not have swimsuits,” PP laughs. “Even though we all still swim in the winter.”

Chuckling, RBW nods, “That we do. That we do. And I know it’s time for me to get a new suit. Mines is getting all stretched out and you can see....” She pauses, grinning, or at least PP thinks she must be grinning though it’s hard to tell in the darkness of Hilltopia.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” PP saves her from the embarrassing description that every swimmer knows. The point where the suit reveals the butt crack.

Gross! PP can’t believe she just wrote that.

“You have yourself a Happy ..... Christmas” RBW seems to hesitate, just for a moment before the word ‘Christmas’—like no one is supposed to say this anymore in case we’re not all Christians? Hell, PP has never been a Christian, but she has no problem with being wished a Merry Christmas. It’s the sentiment, right?

You’d think.

And PP does. At least today, “You have yourself a Happy Christmas too,” PP answers.
RBW beams. “Thank you, I will.”

And PP wishes all of her readers and all of her non-readers a Happy Christmas too while she’s in Italy.

How do you say it in Italian?

Arividerchi Richmond!

Maria Bello's Pool Therapy

2011-11-20T18:21:00.001-08:00

“Betcha can’t hold your breath underwater as long as me!” Maria Bello taunts Traumatized Child.
TC takes the bait, forgetting her trauma for a moment.
Pool Therapy. It works every time, esp. with Maria as the Therapist.

Maria’s eyes gleam, her sleek head wet from diving into the seedy motel pool. Before dunking under, she teases TC with one last challenge, “I was the Champion in my neighborhood for holding my breath underwater! Ready? 1....2.....”
TC smiles, engaged for the first time since her ordeal. The pool will do that. Make you forget for a little while.

“3!” Maria and TC dunk under the pool's shimmering surface at exactly the same time. Now the camera is underwater. Blue murky foggy white limbs flailing under the surface. Bubbles rising as both Maria and the child struggle to stay under. PP begins to count silently to herself as she watches the scene, riveted, on the bed next to DL and Owen Hill. One one thousand....two one thousand....three one thousand....
Maria and TC are still underwater.....facing each other in a breathless standoff. Their white flailing limbs eerie and other worldly.

24 thousand...25 thousand....PP continues to count to herself. Could the scene really be going on this long? Or is she back in Hacienda Heights, with her sisters, playing a similar challenge?

Maria pops up first, a split second before TC. She shakes her noble head, sputtering spray out and into the crisp cool air, the steam rising from the outdoor pool as TC pops up.
“Why would someone do that?” TC begins, loudly, poignantly. She’s not spoken since the event. “Why would someone kill my parents like that? Why would someone shoot them in the stomach in the head in the eyes?” she pleads, her eyes shinning, the wet drips beading on her forehead.

Maria takes her into her arms, enveloping her, “Shhh shhh....it’s okay. I don’t know, Sweetie. I don’t know why anyone would do that. But I’m going to find out. I can promise you that....Okay?”
TC nods, rests her head on Maria’s shoulder as Maria strokes her wet hair.

And PP, DL and Owen Hill sit on the bed, stunned. DL’s gf, RQ is silent. They’ve all just been witness to the healing power of the pool.

PP cracks a joke about this and they all laugh, relieved. It is, after all, only a TV show. Maria Bello plays a tough ass detective; the TC is a talented child actress; the bodies of her parents, bloody and lifeless, aren’t real.

But yet, the pool scene. It felt so real. The child hadn’t spoken until this scene. The trauma was too much for her. But Maria knew the answer. Go for a swim. Play a game in the pool. It’ll help. It’ll heal.

So, PP thinks, after seeing this scene, that this is what she needs. Pool Cure for her goddamn cold.

And so she gives it a try the next day. Swims her usual Hilltopia workout to the exercises of the Rusty Hinges and the tunes Nat King Cole.

She feels better afterwards. As she knew she would. Pool Therapy. It works.
But then the next day.Wham. She’s sicker than ever.
Did the swim relapse her?

Or did she just need Maria Bello to swim alongside her? Egging her on. “C’mon, PP, it’s just a Cold! What’s the big deal? You’re not really sick! Hell, it’s not like you just witnessed a double murder in a NYC hotel room, now is it?”

Yup, this is probably the difference. If PP had had Maria by her side, she’d be better today. Or at least inspired. Which is almost the same thing, isn't it?

Jean Quan

2011-10-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Jean Quan looked dynamite in her backless leotard/skirt gym wear. Surprisingly so. PP admired her smooth bare brown back with various communication devices tucked into the waistband of her Hawaiian print skirt.

She was busy directing. Naturally. What else would the mayor of Oakland being doing at the downtown Oakland YMCA? Here in the upstairs Torture Machine room, the floor was rapidly being emptied of all of the broken machines. “That one there. Out with it!” Quan bellowed as two Y clerks hurried to do her bidding.

Jean marched around the rapidly expanding space. Hands on hips, surveying the scene. PP wondered how she had time to come to the Y given all that the City of Oakland was dealing with at the moment. Occupy Oakland and all of its myriad headaches had not been kind to Jean.

But she was undaunted. She knew that she still had Some Authority, goddammit. And if it wasn’t with those stupid protesters or her stupid police chief, then hell, she could show who’s Boss at the Downtown Oakland YMCA!

“Mrs. Quan,” a Timid Helper ventured toward her, holding a mangled fan. “Where do you....”
“It’s Mayor Quan to you, young man,” Jean commanded, “and don’t you forget it!”
“Yes, Ma’am...”

Jean frowned mightily at the Offending Youth, “I mean, yes, Mrs. Mayor....”

Sighing heavily, Jean shook her head, Did no one get it that she was in Charge? That what she said was Law? Maybe she needed to show them all just how serious she was about this business of revamping the Downtown Oakland Y. Sure she had her sleek workout ensemble on, and maybe this detracted from her authority. Or was it something else?

Jean scratched her head as she directed the OY to recycle the fan in the appropriate pile of discarded equipment.

Okay, she had to admit, even to herself, that maybe leaving town for the Big Protest hadn't been the swiftest of moves, but hell, isn’t that why she had a Chief of Police? Shit. If a Mayor can’t even leave town for one teeny weenie little political soiree, what was the use of all her power of office? And, yeah, okay, maybe she had said the Protesters could camp and then she’d said they couldn’t or .....

Hell, who cares! The Protesters, the Chief of Police, the City of Oakland be damned.

She had a Y to revamp and then a workout to complete before she could bother with such mundancities.

PP watched as Jean headed across the room to confer with a Too Fit Blonde (in Oakland?) Zumba Instructor, before wandering into another side room off the main big room; riveting as Jean was, PP had to check out the rest of the remodel situation.

Entering the empty blue walled room PP gasped, stricken. To her horror all of the pool equipment was piled forlornly in the corner. The kickboards. Pull buoys. Hand paddles. All tossed in a heap on the floor.

What did it mean? Was Jean gonna close the pool?

PP wouldn’t put it past her. She didn’t trust Jean at all. Sure she was the first woman mayor and sure she was the first Asian mayor, but obviously, Jean was not a swimmer; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so quick to divest the pool of all of its lap swimmer accouterments.

“What are you doing in here?”

Startled, PP glanced round to confront Mayor Quan, whose brow was furrowed in furious frustration. PP wondered if this was because of her own transgression into the pool equipment room or if it were some permanent face situation from being mayor.

“I...” PP began. But what could she say? She was here to snoop around and she’d been caught red-handed. By the Mayor herself.

“Don’t give me that drivel!” Jean interrupted, pulling a threatening sort of instrument from out of her waistband. It was long and silver and pointed, looking suspiciously like ....a gun?

No, PP hadn’t done anything that bad. Hell, she was just leaving anyway. “I just was looking for the exit is all, Jean,” PP smiled her biggest kiss ass grin.

Quan continued to glare at her pointing what was definitely a gun into PP’s too close mug. “Do you think I’m an Idiot?” she demanded.
“Well...actually,” PP began, but then thought better of an honest response. “Of course not. I just was wondering why all of the pool equipment is up here in this room so far away from the pool and....”

”I see,” Quan sneered, “a Swimmer, are you?”

“Yes," PP spoke quickly, hoping to talk her way out of an increasingly bizarre situation, "and while I get what you’re trying to do here by getting rid of all the old and broken machines, I can assure you that this pool equipment is perfectly fine and has many good years of use left...”

”Shut up!” Jean commanded, waving the gun closer. “I say what stays and what goes. You got that? I’m sick and tired of everyone questioning my Authority. You people elected me and....”
“Actually, I think you came in second or was it third...” PP began.

Jean raised her arm, taking aim; PP stared down the barrel of the weapon, stopping in mid thought.

BANG!!!!

With a start, PP cried out. She'd been shot by Jean Quan? For coming to the defense of some inconsequential pool equipment. What had she been thinking? Kickboards and hand paddles weren't dying for!

It couldn't be!

And, of course, it wasn't.
It had all been a horrible dream. Or a hilarious dream. Depending on your point of view.

PP opted for the hilarious angle.

Especially since she was pretty goddamn sure that Jean Quan had never stepped foot in the downtown Oakland Y.

At least not in That Slinky Workout Getup. Though she didn't doubt that Jean could clean up the Oakland Y's dilapidated third floor weight room.

If only someone, anyone, would give her a chance.

Occupy the Swimming Pool

2011-10-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

“I was trying to avoid talking to a certain someone who shall remain nameless, but earlier today, she asked me ‘What was going on up there’ in reference to the helicopters overhead.”

Sandy shakes her head, amused? Bemused? Disgusted?

“What did you tell her?” PP asks, not being able to help herself from questions even though she knows the possible consequences.
“I try not to have much truck with her, like I said, so I didn’t say anything, just beat a hasty retreat. You remember, Dexter?”
“I think so.” PP nods, pretending she knows who she’s talking about.
“Big handsome African American kid who worked the front desk?”
“Oh, yes,” PP lies.

“Well, one day, This Woman Who Shall Remain Nameless, she wants to go workout, and she has this kid too, 'bout 7 or 8, and she brings said kid up to the machines and puts him on a treadmill and Dexter sees this and says, 'Whoa Nelly, no way Jose. You can’t have the kid up here on the machines!' And so she just nods and starts fishing around in her bag and digs out some crayons and paper and starts to hand them to Dexter saying how he can just take her kid down to the front desk and watch him for her and Dexter says, ‘No way, Lady. Not in my job description'.”

Sandy chuckles at the memory. PP nods thinking of how Dexter was coming back to her now. Wasn’t he the one that came running into the women’s locker-room without warning when someone fainted in the hot tub? Hollering at the women to ‘Cover up! I’m coming in’ and then all the women were up in arms about his invading their sacred naked space even though he had good reason. Someone’s life was maybe in peril.

PP could ask Sandy if this was the same person. Sandy would remember. But PP decides against it this time.

“You know how at the end of the pool,” PP starts instead, “there’s a board with the Master’s Team work out?”
Sandy nods.
“It just lists the workout: 200 warm up. 200 kick. 200 free, etc.”
“Sure, of course.”
“Well at the bottom of the board today it said, “Occupy the Swimming Pool.”

DL cracks up, her brown belly happy in giggle. Sandy continues to sit for a moment, seemingly confused.
DL offers, “You know, Occupy Oakland, Occupy the Swimming Pool.”
Sandy grins, and then laughs slowly. “Ah, I see. Very clever.”
“Yes, I thought it was funny,” PP adds. “'Bout all I can handle. I know I wouldn’t be able to Occupy Oakland.”
“But the pool,” Sandy nods, “you can Occupy That.”

PP grins, suddenly tired, remembering how she'd had another conversation with Hilltopia Nurse the night before. Her accent inhibiting the content of the dialogue. “I listen radio tonight on way here and did you hear in Oakland they throw cannis….I’m not understand. What they throw. But the people their eyes were burning and their throats were sore and do you know why they do this?”

PP had been confused. What the hell was she talking about? Something 'bout the protestors in Oakland? Were the police throwing tear gas into the crowd? That’s what it sounded like. Could this be?

PP didn’t doubt it; and sure enough, when she got home and turned on the news this is what had happened.

What the hell was the City of Oakland thinking? Gassing the crowd? Shit.Though on the other hand, why were all these people camping out in front of Oakland’s city hall?

“It’s symbolic,” DL had explained. “They have a right to free assembly to protest.”
And of course, PP understands this, but….

You won’t catch her camping out anywhere, especially in downtown Oakland. In the middle of a huge crowd.

No showers. No TV. No pool.

Nope, she’s gonna stick to Occupying the Pool. She's all for the Symbolic, but when it comes to Occupations, it's the Pool and not the City for her.

Stop Asking So Many Questions!

2011-10-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

“Do you have plans for the weekend?”

Serene Latina sighs, deeply, sadly, palpably.

Damn, PP thinks, what the hell have I done? Something bad is gonna come out of her mouth and it’s my own damn fault. If I wasn’t always digging for stories, then whatever she’s gonna tell me, well…..I wouldn’t know.

Up till this moment the conversation had been Sauna Banal. SL and answered PP’s questions about tennis and its myriad intricacies. Did she play singles or doubles? (Singles) How long has she been playing? (Off and on for over 20 years) Where did she play? (Some league in Contra Costa County that PP had never heard of and so it went immediately out of her brain.)

Yet, underlying all of the banality, there had been an undercurrent of Something. PP had felt it the moment SL had entered the Sauna. She’d thought, well, maybe she’s been ill or maybe she’s been working too much or maybe one of her kids went off to college or…..

Who knows? PP had ignored her first intuition and gone ahead and continued to probe with question after question and then with the ‘weekend plans’ question, the most banal of all, well, she’d stepped into it, hadn’t she?

“I actually have sad plans….” SL sighs again, softly, heavily. “…very very sad plans….”

Shit, PP thinks, this is worse than she’d anticipated. What the hell could it be other than a Tragic Death? Damn. PP does NOT want to hear about a Tragic Death, but now it was too late. She can’t take the question back. She has to listen and not start crying.

Or hope that SL doesn’t start crying.
Which she seems on the Verge of.

“My co-worker, I know her not that well, but I know her pretty well, and I have been working with her for 10 years only but this last week, her 21 year old son, he was killed in a car accident...."
“Oh, no!” PP exclaims softly. “How horrible. I’m so sorry.”

SL nods. “Yes, thank you. It is very sad. He was so young. And I feel like I knew him because I saw him grow up. At company gatherings he would be there when he was little and then over the years I saw him turn into a very nice young man and now…this weekend... I must attend his funeral on Sunday at 4....”

She pauses, sighs again. PP doesn’t respond. How can she? What can she say? It is horrible. 21 is so goddamn young. And then it all goes back to, strangely, what PP was thinking of earlier as she left work, walking out to her car through the darkening parking lot. “I could get into my car right now and get in an accident and that would be that.”

She had actually thought this this specifically only a couple of hours before.
What did such serendipity mean? It was strange. Not like PP had gotten into an accident. And not like she’d thought this before SL’s 21 year old Tragic Death accident, but still…..it was a little eerie.

PP believes in superstition. Not in any concrete way, but when Something happens that she had a feeling would happen, she’s not surprised.

So tonight, as she listens to SL tell her story about a life cut short, as cliché as that sounds, it doesn’t surprise her that she had known Something was wrong. PP barely knows SL; they’ve exchanged banalities a half a dozen times in the last few years, but yet, when someone feels this sad, you know it. It’s there and can’t be hidden.

Perhaps it would have come out even if PP hadn’t been asking all the questions?

Perhaps.

Yet, PP thinks that she just better stop asking so many questions. It’s not healthy. For her.

Yet, maybe for SL, it was good to talk a little bit about the Tragedy to a stranger? Maybe.

Though PP doubts this. When tragedy strikes, it’s better to just stay home, cry a lot, and then go to the pool and swim and swim and swim and swim.....

Oh Those Sisters!

2011-10-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

And PP wonders this too. Why is it that many of the women in Utopia (or in this case, Hilltopia’s sauna) feel like they can tell her everything? If they only knew how she was writing it all down in her blog! Maybe they do know and they want to be part of a ‘story’?

PP doubts this. For whatever reason, she must be a sympathetic listener. Or at least sometimes, usually when she’s just finished swimming and she’s too tired and relaxed to interrupt. Though she’d be the first to admit that she encourages the ‘stories’. Which is exactly what she’s done today.

Chevron Woman has been on a Sister Rant for a good 15 minutes:

“I just got back from vacation. Well actually it wasn’t much of a vacation. I mean it was in a way, but well I just went to visit my sister. In Modesto. I’ve never been to Modesto. And she just really got on my nerves….”

“Why was that?” PP asks. “Just Sister Stuff?”

CW nods, “Yeah, just Sister Stuff. You know she’s just on my case about this Black Mold in my bathroom and I try to tell her that I don’t have time to deal with it. I work full time and so it’s hard to wait around for the contractor and then once the contractor’s there then you have to supervise them and then so I just don’t have the time.”

“Does she work?”

“No, no she used to. So she should get it. In fact there was this one time when we were all gonna drive to Disneyland and we all had to wait until she got off work at 5:30 even though that was right at rush hour but no she couldn’t get off early and so we all had to wait and so she should get it that I can’t just take the time off and deal with some contractor and I don’t even know if it is Black Mold I mean I would have to call someone and have him come out and investigate and then once he did I’d have to have him come back and do the work and well….”

Her voice trails off for a moment as she takes a breath. PP intercedes, “Well, she’s probably just concerned about you.”

“Yeah, she’s probably just concerned about me. You’re probably right, but still, I don’t have the money either it takes 1000’s of dollars to fix something like that, right?”
“I would imagine. I don’t know.”
“I would imagine too even though I don’t really know.”

PP observes how CW immediately clings to her rejoinders, repeating them verbatim. It’s like PP is leading a very receptive one-on-one tutorial with a student from China who is proving she knows the material by regurgitating it word for word.

“Anyway, I didn’t really want to talk about this when I was down there visiting it was my vacation after all and her husband didn’t seem to mind even though I thought he’d be bored with it and when she said that I could stay an extra day but then she said maybe her husband wouldn’t like me to stay an extra day and so I said okay, I can go but then she went out I don’t know where to the store or something and her husband came in and I asked him if he would mind if I stayed an extra day and he said sure no problem. So you see it was all her.”

“Oh those Sisters!” PP exclaims.

“Yes, Those Sisters!” CW repeats.

"And then I had to apply for vacation from my job way in advance and Management said that it was okay back in January but now that I’ve left they didn’t have anyone to fill in for me so we’ll see what’s piled up since I’ve been gone. It’s not my fault it’s Management’s Fault.”

“It usually is.”
“It usually is,” she repeats, nodding and then stops and stares at PP for a moment, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

Laughing, PP shrugs, “That’s okay. I don’t mind. Just go for a swim. That will help.”
“That will help!” She grins before shuffling down the slick hall past the showers to the pool.

A Most Odious Child

2011-09-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

“Come over here,” PP could barely hear the mother’s soft plea by the mirror, "and look how cute you are!"
“I DON’T WANT TO LOOK CUTE!!!” The Most Odious Child screeched. And at this point, PP had to laugh.

The MOC had been screaming, crying, and coughing for the entire time (about 20 minutes) that PP had been trying to get changed.

She was tired, it being a Friday evening after a long day in Unpleasant Hill. The air in her office had given her a sore throat and headache, so much so, that she’d thought she was coming down with something.

But she’d forced herself to go for a swim, telling herself how it would make her feel better. As it always does.

And it had.

Until the Most Odious Child had entered her Locker Room Reality.

When the child had first been crying, PP had thought, Okay, It’s tired and hungry and wet. It just needs to get home and be put to bed.

This is something that mystifies PP: why the hell are these small children swimming and screaming at the YMCA at 9:30 at night? Obviously, they’re not happy. They’re tired and whiny in the best of circumstances and Hellish and Odious in the worst.

MOC was just revving up. “I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT TO DO THAT! WHY DID YOU....” Then some coughing and crying interrupted the Refusal. PP heard The Mom murmuring, but couldn’t make out her speech. She was so quiet. So calm.

On Valium?

PP has to wonder about this too. How is it that parents can just blithely go along, letting their children screech to their hearts' contents in the women’s locker room without blinking an eye? It’s like they have NO clue that the child is practicing Advanced Odiousity.

Must be nice, PP thinks as she cringes with the next wave of Screaming Protests, “I WON’T DO THAT! I DON’T LIKE YOU! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!!!!”

And the then clincher with “I DON’T WANT TO LOOK CUTE!”

PP was in the mirrored area during this last assertion. And she had to agree. MOC did NOT look cute. He was a sniveling, miserable, Red Nosed Monster. And sure, maybe he was dressed cutely in his little navy shorts and striped shirt, his dark brown hair cut neatly over his big blue eyes.

But cute?

No fucking way.

“He must be tired,” PP tried to half-heartedly commiserate with Valium Mom, who just gave PP a serene smile and nodded, before turning to fill a cup of water for the screeching child. “Here, Honey, have some water.”

For an instant MOC eyed PP, his eyes bright with malice. Then he swiveled round to eye the outstretched cup of water, before raising his fat little fist and knocking it out VM’s grasp.

“OH!” she cried, “That was not a nice thing to do!” the water splashing in an arc toward the open door.

MOC smirked, and then gave PP a very naughty grin, before dashing out of the locker room with VM in resigned pursuit.

Out of Control

2011-09-07T14:41:00.001-07:00

PP watches in horror as Scraping Walker Woman’s Volvo lurches forward, out of control, at lightening speed, the engine gunning a horrific screeching. Over the curb, into the light post, the car comes to a halt, the tall pole vibrating back and forth from the impact. The car perches precariously on the embankment, the center of the old station wagon balancing on the curb between the upper and lower parking lots of the Hilltopia Y.

Shit. PP starts to run toward the accident. SWW must have hit the accelerator instead of the brakes. PP’s been wondering for years how SWW does it. She obviously has some sort of modification for the car so that she can operate it with her hands instead of her crippled legs. But yet, even so, PP has worried about just such an accident like the one she’s just witnessed. SWW’s coordination seems to be, at best, just a precarious as the Volvo’s balancing act right now.

A Compact Man in khaki shorts drops his gym bag into the open trunk of his car before rushing over to the scene, getting there way before PP. PP sees that SWW is talking to him, shaking her head, as he tries to help her out of the car.

“I’ll run for help!” she calls to them, before turning and heading back to the Welcome Center.

Damn, she thinks as she tries to pick up the pace. I can’t run for shit. Wish I were swimming instead to get help. That’d be hella faster. Swinging open the front door to the Y, she leans over the front desk.

“You all know H?” she interrupts two clerks deep in consultation over the computer screen.
“Sure,” Round Tall African American Youth nods, “she’s disabled.”
“Yeah, well, I hope she isn’t more so. She just had an accident in the parking lot. Drove right into the light post and.....” PP catches her breath as RTAAY takes charge, “Call 9-1-1” he instructs his co-worker before shooting past PP through the double door and out into the lot.

Why the hell didn’t she think of that? To call 9-1-1? It did not even occur to her. She blames the combination of her panic and phone phobia as she hurries after him.

He can run in spite of his solidness. And is there at the car well before PP.

As PP hurries after him; she slows as she approaches H’s situation. Then peers in.

H is rattled. Her glasses askew on her pale face. Her bright red lipstick smeared across her upper lip. Her eyes wide in agitation.
“Are you all right?” PP manages as she peers over Compact Man and AAY.
“I’m all right, I’m all right, I’m all right...” she repeats, her voice firm in spite of her shaking hands.
“Okay, well...” PP backs up. It does seem like she’s ok. Even though she’s understandably shook up.

Who wouldn’t be? But yet, PP realizes that such a near miss may be doubly horrific for H. Her crippled legs are a result of a botched surgery after a car accident. (At least this is what PP recalls overhearing many times in the locker-room.) So such a near miss as today’s must trigger all sorts of hellish memories.

Plus there’s the issue of her Independence. H is fiercely so. Whenever anyone in the locker-room asks if they can help her, she fires back: “I’m fine. I’m fine. Why does everyone think I need help?”

Maybe cuz you can barely walk and you’re grunting up a storm?

Yet PP gets it. Who wants to be asked if they’re okay over and over and over again? It must be so exhausting and frustrating.

So PP worries that with such an accident as today’s, she may not be able to drive herself, or even worse, she might have to ask for help to get to and from the pool after this.

Suddenly, PP hears the sirens. Lots of them. Then the fire truck, the ambulance, the police van and finally another ambulance all pile into the parking lot.

Wow. The city of Richmond comes through for H. But again PP worries that the police will take their report. Note how H couldn’t control her vehicle. And then pronounce her unfit to drive.

How horrific would that be for her?

PP knows that for H the pool at Hilltopia is her salvation. (As it is hers) That without this water workout, she’d be lost. Why she’d probably be relegated to sitting at home watching re-runs of Oprah if she couldn’t make it to Hilltopia. And while PP has heard she has a husband, she’s never seen any manifestation of said spouse. Wonders if, in fact, it’s true.

Why is this? It’s not like H couldn’t be married. But yet, there’s something odd about how he never is on the scene. Not even once has PP seen him bring H to Hilltopia.

PP wonders if he would. If it does turn out that H can’t drive anymore, will Ghost Hubby step up?

Pulling out of the lot, PP sees in her rearview mirror how the paramedics are helping H with her walker and how H is standing.

This is a good image to leave with.

A much better one than the one she began this story with: A battered old Volvo Station wagon, with a crazed looking woman at its helm, lurching scarily into the light post....out of control.

Professional Swimmer?

2011-08-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

“We just love watching you swim,” Black Tank Suit Tank Woman gushes, leaning over the lane line as she walks alongside PP’s lane. “You swim so beautifully. So graceful. You don’t make a splash at all!” she laughs as Scraping Walker Woman passes by her, nodding in agreement.

“Thanks,” PP grins. She’s heard it before, but the compliments work for her. Especially from someone so charming. She’d not seen Black Tank Suit Woman before, round and soft, but there were so many like her at Hilltopia. They all partook of the water walking lane, chatting and chuckling. A real community of aqua walkers.

“Were you a professional swimmer?” BTSW asks.
“Uh….” PP’s not sure what this means. Who the hell is a professional swimmer? Like someone in the Olympics? But no, they were all ‘amateurs’ right? Maybe after the Olympics, when they’re on the cover of a box of Wheaties and get paid for their poses?

PP couldn’t even think of one Wheaties Box sporting a swimmer. Was Mark Spitz on Wheaties?
Probably, but that was eons ago. And she was hardly in his category. Still, she liked it that ‘professional’ was a possibility for a swimmer.

Then of course, Esther Williams did occur to her, but that was it.
Mark Spit. Esther Williams. PP.

Why not?

“You just swim so effortlessly,” BTTW continues, “not like us old slow swimmers!” She laughs, shy now.
PP doesn’t point out that actually BTTW isn’t swimming at all. Why burst her bubble? Instead she grins, “Hey, it’s being in the water that counts. Doesn’t matter how fast you swim!”
BTTW likes this, nods in agreement, “That’s right. Of course.”

And off she goes, catching up to Scraping Walker Woman, “Did you see that I was here a little later today?” SSW asks.
“No, no, I didn’t notice…..”

PP sometimes wishes she were a Walker, but then it just wouldn't be the same even though she might get more idle chit chat stories for her blog.

For now, she'd keep to her graceful rhythm.

Pushing off from the side of the pool, she dives into the middle of the lane, takes one long stroke and then another, stretching, reaching, swimming…smiling..

Lap Swimmers: Second Class Citizens @ Hilltop Y?

2011-08-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

PP has had enough! After several weeks of lap swimmer disrespect, she's composed (and sent) a letter to the Director of the Hilltop YMCA Pool.

This took up her designated PP blog time, so she's just gonna post it for all her readers, many of whom she knows will sympathize!

Dear RJ,

I have had several instances in the past couple of weeks of lap swimming hours not being honored. These hours are very specific and limited; therefore, I would really appreciate it if you’d enforce these hours and not allow the families to ‘spill’ over into scheduled lap swimming times.

While I understand that it’s summer and the families want to play in the pool, the lack of consideration for the lap swimming hours is appalling. Your lifeguards need to be reminded that there is a schedule that needs to be adhered to; otherwise, what’s the point of having a schedule?

Here are three specific examples to show you how pervasive the problem is. Keep in mind that I am only one lap swimmer who swims perhaps 3-4 times per week. If this is happening to me this often, imagine how prevalent it must be during the rest of the week.
1) August 5, 2011: I arrived on Friday afternoon for the 4:30-7:30 lap swimmer hours at approximately 6:20 only to find a group of kids and their adult caretakers taking up one of the lap swimming lanes. The lifeguard must have allowed them to stay in the pool even though it was designated lap time. They did get out after about a half hour, but I have no idea how long they’d been allowed to use the lap lane.
2) August 6, 2011: I was swimming during the Saturday lap swim/adult swim lesson time that is held between 1-2. At approximately 1:40 (20 minutes still left of lap time) the lifeguard allowed a family with children to take over one of the lap lanes.
3) August 15, 2011: I waited until 8:30 p.m. (I have built my entire schedule to accommodate your limited lap swimming hours) in order to take advantage of the lap swimming hour (only one hour) offered from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. When I arrived on deck at 8:35, there were still several families and children in two of the lap lanes. When I asked the lifeguard if he was going to request they leave so we could have lap swimming, he told me that this family had arrived late and had traveled a long way (I travel a long way; I wait for the scheduled time!) and so he was going to let them swim for a few more minutes.

This is completely unacceptable! He said that he would ‘Take care of them and ask them to leave if I really wanted him to’ (Like I’m the villain here? Asking that I have the scheduled time that you post for lap swimming?) When I said, ‘Yes, I’d appreciate your asking them to leave,” he did so, but made me feel like I was being unreasonable to make such a request.
Number one: I should NOT even have to make such a request. It’s his job to make sure the schedule is followed, right?
Number two: I don’t appreciate being made to feel like I’m some evil anti-family lap swimmer just because I follow the schedule.

Again, what’s the point of posting a schedule if you don’t follow it? I certainly would NEVER expect that the lap swimming hour would be lengthened and families made to wait or have fewer lanes in order to accommodate me.

The issue is NOT about room in the pool. The issue is about following the schedule and respecting those of us who do.

Thus, I would really appreciate if you would remind (train?) your lifeguards to adhere to your posted schedule. It seems this is the least I can expect as a paying member of the YMCA.

Sincerely,

Pool Purrs

Home

2011-08-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

“Do you know how in every stereotype there’s a little kernel of Truth?”

DL pinches together her thumb and index finger to show how small the amount is. Sandy nods, eager to hear the answer to her question “If you could take one thing from your trip, one thing about the culture, or people, back with you, what would it be?” (DL’s been in Italy for the last month; hence, the profound lack of PP stories.)

“That’s a good question,”DL pauses, taking a deep breath, her concentration and attention to Sandy’s Italian Culture Question palpable in the Heaterized Sauna Air of Utopia. “I think I’d like to take that openness, that connectedness, that Italian Way of How Everyone is Welcome…..”

She pauses again, nodding to herself as Sandy and PP sit rapt in anticipation. But they get it. Italians have That Way. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is Family. Everyone matters.

It’s so embracing if that makes sense?

PP still remembers this about Italy even though she’s not been there for over 25 years. Those long dinners with piles of pasta, glasses of wine, miles of chatter—most of which she didn’t understand since she knew only about 5 words in Italian (Grazie, Gatto, Cappuccino, Gelato con panna--oh! That's 6!). But it didn’t matter. No one cared that she didn’t understand exactly what the conversation was about. She was there. She was laughing. She was eating (This was paramount)

And so now, when DL talks about this ‘stereotype’ of openness and welcoming in the Italian people, it makes perfect sense.

She goes on to tell the story of landing in the village in Sicily where her people are from. How over 30 members of her family were there at the docks to greet her. How they were so happy to meet her. Asking her why she’d come ‘back’: “D, everyone leaves This Place," one of her relatives had asked, "but you, you come back. Why?” And the great aunts had tears in their eyes, and DL is weeping too, and she tells them how she had to come back. That the place called to her. That her Artist Great Uncle was here. His art. His soul. His angel lurked in the Place.

And they all understood, even if they didn’t really have the ‘language’.

PP does understand this even though her entire life is about language and words and stories. One can be with people or be in a place and feel like it’s home.

And yes, while this might sound cliché or stereotypical, it’s true.

And so that little Kernel of Truth that DL so eloquently expanded upon for PP and Sandy this night has traveled back to Utopia.

Bella bella bella!

Bondage

2011-07-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

What the hell was he doing?

PP had seen him come on deck earlier, just as she was turning at the wall. Could it be? Was it Man Kick Swimmer?

Damn.

Looked like him from what she could tell through her foggy mask. Fortunately she was near the end of her swim and double fortunately there were other lanes open besides the one next to her.

She’d driven through the Rush Hour Friday afternoon traffic again to avoid just this situation, whether it be screaming children or kicking men, & she’d thought suffering through the stop and go traffic would be worth it.

But now?

She stopped at the wall for a moment to retrieve her fins. Slipping them on, she openly stared at Man Kick Swimmer sitting on the side of the pool in front of the lane next to hers, wrapping something around his Kicking Legs.

She was almost certain it was him now; though she couldn’t know for sure till he actually got in the water and began his tell-tale spaz splashing stroke.

Taking off down the lane, she would have shaken her head if it hadn’t been underwater. Why her? Why did he have to come at this time? And why did he have to get in the lane next to her?

Was she going to have to get out to avoid being another Victim of his Hideous Man Kick? (If you, Swimmer Readers, don’t recall what happened, PP had been kicked in the kidneys by Man Kick Swimmer a few weeks back. She’d even had to get out of the pool. See previous post for more details)

But now, back at the wall where he was still screwing around with tying what? Was he tying a pull buoy to his legs? And then tying his legs together?

Could this be?

She’d never seen such a swimming training tool if that’s what you’d call it. Once she’d seen a guy with an inner tube wrapped around his ankles to keep his legs together, but she’d never actually witnessed Pull Buoy Bondage Legs before.

Grinning, she had to wonder. Why was he doing such a thing? Could it be because he’d kicked her and felt bad and so was making sure it didn’t happen again?

Nah. PP liked to think the world of the pool swam around her, but this was stretching it even for her ego.

Yet....

In the water now she could tell it was definitely him; his mighty spaz splashing was unmistakable; but now with his legs bound together, no way could he kick out to the side at all.

She was safe!

Did he do this when he saw that she was here? No, it didn’t seem like it since he had to have had the ropes with him already, right?

Or had he come out on deck for a moment, spied her, and then gone back into the locker room to get the necessary ropes?

She tried to remember if this had happened.

Part of her thought that it had; another part of her thought it was her imagination.

No matter. He was bound and harmless today.

PP liked this very much and decided that getting kicked had its rewards. What a relief to swim next to Man Kick Swimmer with no worries.

But there was still a part of her that trembled at the thought of his binds coming loose. Entirely possible since he was so damn spastic. The sheer force of his splashing might be the demise of his bondage.

PP decided she better get out before this happened. Just to be on the safe side. Tempting as it was to swim on the wild side, she nevertheless didn't need to get kicked by Bondage Man Legs! Impossible as that seemed, she knew he couldn't be trusted.

And maybe because of the tied legs his sanity was really what she was questioning.

Which of course made him doubly dangerous!

Giddy with Glee

2011-07-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

“Excuse me,” PP’s on the pool deck, ready to go: cap and mask on, fins in hand, but yet....what's up with all the goddamn families in the pool still?

The spaced out but Frazzled Lifeguard gives her a tired smile (How can you be spaced out and frazzled? The Hilltopia lifeguards have this persona down to a science.)

“Hi,” FL manages.
“I thought that it was lap swimming at 4:30.” PP glances at the still mayhem-filled side of the pool where several families are doing their usual screaming Aquatic Antics. Shit. She’d driven up here specially at 4 in the stupid stop and go rush hour traffic so that she could avoid this Pool Chaos and now?

“Oh!” Frazzled Lifeguard looks worried, “Is that what the schedule says? I’m new.”
PP grins. “Yeah, that’s what the schedule says. Lap swimming from 4:30-7:40.”
“Okay, well, thanks for letting me know.”

FL gets up off her perch and starts to instruct the families to clear the water.
PP’s grin widens.
Such power!
All she had to do was inform the lifeguard that the schedule said it was lap swimmers time and then voila! Out with the families!

She loved it!

The families, however, did not.

PP watches in silent glee as they slowly climb out of the pool. Several parents sloshing over to read the posted schedule and shaking their heads.

YAHOOO!!! PP shouts to herself as she helps FL move the lane line over, almost smashing a slow to get out floating child with the line.

It was tempting to brain the little bugger.
But then it’d cry.
And then PP would feel bad.

Well, not too bad as she slipped her fins on and glided across the now clear lane. The water smooth and childfree.

Ahhhh.....

Why couldn’t it always be like this, she thought to herself as she turned at the wall to head back down the empty lane.

Maybe it could, she thought.

All she had to do was tell the lifeguard that it was lap swimming time and....

Oh but there was that damn schedule.

It worked for her this time, and her moment of Pool Clearance Power was Delicious, but in reality, she couldn’t make the schedule her schedule all of the time, could she?

Gleeful and Giddy, she watched as a mom and her kid approached the lifeguard. Were turned away.

Come back when it’s Rec Swim! PP thought. Read the goddamn schedule! She laughed, thinking how it was strange that the new lifeguard hadn't read the schedule before her shift. Or kept it right there next to her to double check throughout the day.

Thanks goodness she had PP to save her from Lifeguard Space out Dereliction of Duty she smiled to herself underwater, dolphin kicking with gleeful abandon. 4:30 on Fridays were Her Time. At least for now.

And that's all that matters!

Season of Mayhem: Summer

2011-06-23T14:06:00.001-07:00

I

“Are you okay?”
PP knew Something Bad was gonna happen. It had been inevitable. Hilltopia Pool was jammed packed with screaming children, spastic lap swimmers and wayward kickers.

Which is exactly what had happened to her.

She’d been kicked.

Hard.

Was she OK?

It was too early to tell. The pain was sharp and shooting. Emanating from the spot on her back where he’d landed his icky big foot.

Into her kidneys?

It felt like it.

“Are you OK?” he repeats. PP can vaguely feel his concern. She can’t look him in the eye. Knows that it was an accident.

Except. It wasn’t. When the pool is this much mayhem everyone has to be a little more careful. Watch their kicks into the next lane a little more closely.

Yet no one ever does. Everyone just swims blithely on like they own the pool and they're the king of their lane.

And her lane.

For this is what happened. His powerful Man Kick (as DL dubbed it the next day when PP related the story) had strayed under the lane line and bonked PP’s kidney mightily. She had to stop. She had to swoon.

She had to get out of the goddamn pool.

Later she felt a little sorry for the Man Kicker. She had just left. Not responded to his query of was she OK.

And she was. OK.

But yet she didn’t feel okay enough to feel too sorry for him. At least not yet.

Maybe next time she sees him.
Or not....

II

“I just want to know why it is that the Master’s Team and the Aqua Aerobics are allowed into the pool 5 minutes early, yet the lap swimmers aren’t?”

PP’s pissed. She’d ventured into the El Cerrito Swim Center thinking maybe it’d be better than Hilltopia; but of course, she was wrong.

Summer: The season was enough to stop her from swimming.

She’d gotten to the pool early cuz she knew it’d be crazy. And when she parked the Geo at the end of the lot and witnessed the Spray Play Frog Fountain's gushing in the shallow pool with screaming children scurrying under it, she knew it was going to be a challenge.

Yet the deep pool where the lap swimmers swim was quiet. Still. Peaceful. Kid free.

So, maybe it’d be OK.

Yet no.

After waiting in line, ready to pay the exorbitant $5.50 fee, she faces the polite but non-registering her anxiety kid clerk who asks her, “You here for lap swimming?”
”Yes.”
“You have to wait till 5:30.”
”What time is it now?” PP asks, craning her head under the window to see the clock as a parade of squealing kids with tired parents in tow pass thro the gate with no waiting.
“5:25.”
“Can’t I go in now to get changed?” she asks. The lap swim time is only till 6:30 today. Only 1 hour. Which would be fine. If he would just let her in.

But he won't budge. Shakes his head, “Nope. Lap swimmers have to wait till 5:30.”
She wants to ask why but he doesn’t give her a chance, waving her to the side to help the next person.

So she waits. And the 5 minutes is a long one. She’s anxious since by the time he lets her in it’s gonna be 5:35 and it is.

In line in front of her, two Asian Hello Kitty Women’s Debit Card is declined 3 times. You Can’t Come In Clerk keeps asking them if they have another card. He keeps trying the same one when they shake their heads no. The clock keeps ticking. PP sees her lap hour slipping away.

Finally Hello Kitty Woman #2 pulls out some cash.
Shit.
Why the hell didn’t she do that in the first place?

Can’t Come In Clerk takes his time making change. Lets them in. Motions for PP. Says some cheery bullshit when PP hands him the exact change, “Perfect. Have a nice swim.”
Fuck you Asshole, PP thinks as she hurries in.

It’s 5:35 now & Total Hell in the locker room. Kids crying. Moms swearing. Toilet paper draping.

PP hurries to get changed.But this takes 5 more minutes.

Now it’s 5:40; she heads out to the deck. Scrambles to put on her cap. Earplugs. Mask.

Now it's 5:45 as she jump into the pool.

45 minutes.

It’s better than nothing, but still. If You Can’t Come In Clerk had let her in at 5:25......well.... Her swim woulda been relaxing instead of stressing.

So afterwards, when she asks the Tired End of the Day Clerk why she wasn’t let in and got angrier and angrier as he made her repeat her question over and over until finally he shrugs,

“Actually, the lap swimmers are supposed to be allowed in 5 minutes early just like the Aqua Aerobics. In the past, the reason that we didn’t let the lap swimmers in was cuz they’d get dressed really fast and then jump in before a lifeguard was there."

“Obviously, that isn’t the case today,” PP interrupts, remembering how there were at least 5 or 6 lifeguards sprinkled round the deck for swim lessons. Lap swimmers. Good Measure.

“Yes....” He pauses. It’s so hard dealing with these middle-aged women lap swimmers.

PP is a type now; she knows it. Complaining about her ‘pool rights’.

“.... sounds like whoever you dealt with was enforcing a previous policy,” he concedes. Finally.

PP sighs. Loudly. Shit.

“Well, maybe you should let your employees know that the policy has been changed.”
He doesn’t look at her. “Yes, well....we have a meeting in 35 minutes. I’ll be sure to bring it up.”

Oh, sure you will, she thinks as she stomps off, shaking her head in frustration.

Is it a Small Victory that PP was proven right?

Sorta.
Did he offer to give her her money back?

Are you kidding?

Lap Swimmer Discrimination. That’s what it is.

Or Pool Clerk Idiocy.

Yeah, that’s really what it is.

III.

“Can you help me move the lane line over?” Evetlana asks PP who’s just finishing up a surprisingly nice swim at the Oaktown Y in spite of the crazed crowd of parents and small children who’d been flailing in the side of the pool next to her for the last 50 minutes.

“Sure,” PP nods. “No problem,” as she takes her mask off and prepares to dunk under the lane line to help move it.
“Oh no!” Evtlana’s face falls, her pale features falling into a resigned frown of disgust.
“What?” PP glances to the spot where E is pointing.
“I have to close the pool. You need to get out.”
PP doesn’t have to be asked twice. The brown floating slime ickyness nudging its way toward her causes a momentary rise of nausea.

She didn’t need to add to the Brown Alert.

“How was your swim?” DL asks later as PP tries to recover in the hot tub.
PP tells her.

DL nods, “A Lily Pad of Poop.”

"Yes!" PP laughs.

Was she OK?

Sure. As long as she had DL to entertain her with Poetic Pronouncements.

Lily Pad of Poop! What a perfect way to end her first week of Summer: The Season of Mayhem.

It’s Meditative

2011-06-12T15:36:00.000-07:00

I

“I have a problem for you to ponder while you’re swimming.” Sandy opens her locker, pulling off her workout togs to prepare for Utopia.

“Well, swimming's good for problem solving,” PP laughs, tucking her hair into her cap.
“Exactly. It’s meditative.”

PP nods, waiting for the Problem Description. She’s getting a little anxious though. Last week she didn’t give herself enough time to swim and barely got a mile in. Tonight she was careful to give herself lots of time, but now Sandy has a Critical Thinking Exercise for her to do in the Pool. Not that she doesn’t believe in swimming's problem solving capabilities, but still....

She really wants to swim NOW!

“You see, I have this vacuum,” Sandy begins, tossing her shoes into the locker, “and it has this very long hose. Oh it must be 30 or 40 feet long. It’s a special kinda vacuum..... What’s it called?” She pauses, thinking.

PP waits. Shit. A Vacuum Question? Like she knows anything about vacuums. In fact, vacuums, over the years, have been her arch nemeses. They never work. And when they do, they always jam up. And when that happens, she has a fit and throws them away.

She remembers the last vacuum she had. A bright yellow sporty model from ACE. It had seemed like a good investment but then the usual vacuum issues arose and the last image she has of it is its bright yellow plastic self, sitting forlornly on the sidewalk of 63rd street, just waiting for some poor sucker to pick it up.

Of course, someone did.

Did PP feel responsible for booby-trapping this poor person into a Delusional Working Vacuum World?

No. She was glad to get rid of it.

And now here’s Sandy wanting Vacuum Advice?

“.....I forget what it’s called exactly. But you know what I mean, don’t you?”

PP shakes her head. She has never seen a vacuum with 30 to 40 feet of hose. The potential for Various Vacuum Issues must be horrendous.

“Anyway, there’s something stuck in the middle of the hose and I can’t get it out. I tried hanging the hose off the 3-story balcony to shake it out. But no go. So, I was wondering if you had any ideas?”
“To get the Blockage out of the hose?” PP confirms the problem before heading off to the pool.

”Exactly. I need to find some way to get whatever’s blocking it out. I think it’s probably a piece of my old linoleum floor stuck in there and I can’t dislodge it. I know I could go to the vacuum repair guy and he’d cut it in half and splice it back together. But that’d cost a couple hundred dollars and I’m cheap.”

PP nods, trying to wrap her mind around the idea of spending $200 to fix a vacuum hose. “That is a dilemma,” she laughs. “I’ll see what I come up with while I’m swimming.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate it.” Sandy shuffles off, wearing only her flip-flops as she heads to the sauna.

II

It was a glorious swim. PP had her own lane! The water was 84 degrees! And her mask didn’t leak.

A perfect scenario for solving Sandy’s Vacuum Hose Issue.

Of course, an idea did occur to her after about 1200 meters. But it was just a joke idea. Sandy seemed to be expecting a Real Solution.

Well, maybe this idea would work, she thought as she finished her 2000 meters and heaved herself out of the pool right before the lifeguard gave her half-hearted whistle, hollering “POOL CLOSED!”

III

Following DL into the sauna, PP spies Sandy in her usual spot on the top tier.

“So I came up with a solution to your problem,” PP announces. “You wanna hear it?”
”Please,” Sandy’s not sitting up for the presentation, but that’s ok. PP doesn’t expect her to.

DL plops down on the bench below Sandy, sighing.
“How big around is the hose?” PP asks.
“About 2 inches I would guess.” Sandy makes a circle with her thumb and index finger to show the circumference to PP.
“Perfect,” she giggles. “All you need to do is get a piece of cheese,” PP begins, grinning.
“OK.”
“And drop it down one side of the hose till it hits the blockage. Then on the other side, you drop a wee little mousie and let her push and push and push the linoleum out of the other side in order to get the cheese. It has to be a smelly cheese so that she really wants to work for it and....”

“I’m afraid that won’t work. All of the mice in Piedmont are too well-fed. The mouse wouldn’t be interested in it.”

“Oh....” PP allows her tone to show her deflation. “Well, I was only kidding.....”
“Yes, I know. But I have to take every suggestion seriously.”

And she was. Serious. It was no laughing matter. In fact, no one was laughing. Not DL and not Sandy.

But PP does, shrugging. Someone has to laugh at her stupid ideas. Besides what do you expect at the end of a long hellish day even if the swim was perfect?

“DL did you hear what Sandy’s problem is?” PP asks.
“No.”
Sandy explains it to DL, who suggests running a snake down the hose.
“I thought of that too,” Sandy nods. “That’s a good idea. I’m going to give that one a try.”
“A Snake instead of a Mouse!” PP exclaims.
No one laughs at this joke either.
Deciding that it was time to call it a night, PP rises and heads for the shower.

Thinking how it just goes to show that while a swim may be meditative and thus a ripe arena for ideas, sometimes it just doesn’t yield anything worth sharing.

Even if someone does command it.

Alternate Universe

2011-06-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers: Please read the preceding blog entry first, Missing Person, for proper chronological soap opera sequence.

~Part II~

“Hey, Sandy,” PP calls out to the prone form lying on the top deck of Utopia, Oaktown. “I found DL!
“Yeah,” DL laughs as she follows PP into the sauna, “ It only took a week.”
Sandy chuckles. “Very good. Where was she?”
“In an Alternate Universe,” PP jokes.
“Really?” Sandy shifts, squirts herself with a spray of water.
“Yeah, bet you didn’t know there was one at the Berkeley Y,” PP teases.

“Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Sandy answers. “But seriously where was she?”
“In the upstairs women’s sauna. Did you know there was another women’s locker room, upstairs?”
“That’s right,” Sandy nods, knowingly. It does occur to PP to ask why the hell she hadn't mentioned another sauna to her last week when she'd been so panicked about DL's whereabouts. Chalk it up to Heaterization Disorientation?

“I had no idea,” PP shakes her head. “I’ve been going there for years and no one ever told me there was a Parallel Universe at the Berkeley Y.”
“The funny thing is,” DL interjects, “is that I did think of it. That there might be more than one sauna in that place. And when I asked this other woman who was in the sauna with me if there was another one she just looked at me like I was crackers and said, ‘No.’”

“Really?” Sandy says, “That’s odd.”
“Yeah, isn’t it,” PP agrees. “I wonder why she lied to DL about another Sauna? If she hadn’t, maybe none of this woulda happened.”
“No, you’re right. It could’ve been avoided,” Sandy agrees.
“I think the Lying Sauna Woman was part of the Evil Parallel Universe Cohort that didn’t want me to find DL or for DL to tell any of her friends about the other sauna. Then she could have it all to herself.”

”It was icky,” DL murmurs. “I didn’t know what to do. I was upstairs with a towel wrapped around me wondering where is PP where is PP I wonder if there’s another sauna and so when I asked this woman and she said no there wasn’t well.... I.... was very confused.....”
“I bet.” Sandy nods. “But tell, me, PP how did you end up finding her if you didn’t know the other sauna was up there?”

PP paused for a moment, trying to remember. What had she done? They’d told her at the front desk that they didn’t have a PA system and so she’d been completely flummoxed by this, not knowing what to do, when oh yeah that’s right, she’d mentioned that she was supposed to meet her friend in the sauna and then the Big Pasty Clerk had asked her which sauna.
“There’s more than one sauna?” she’d asked, astounded.
“Well, yeah, there’s one upstairs and one downstairs. Which one were you supposed to meet your friend in?”
PP had shook her head, “I had no idea that there were two saunas. I was just in the downstairs one..... I guess that’s what happened. My friend is in the upstairs one.”

And sure enough, when PP had hurried up the 3 flights of stairs, her bare feet cold, her wet hair tangling, her panic beginning to subside, she arrived breathless into the Women’s Locker room. Upstairs.

So weird.
A parallel universe.

PP glanced through the rows of lockers where a door was open into a weight room, the clanking and banging adding to her disorientation. It was too bright. Yellow. Eerily empty....

And then voila! there was DL wandering around in a daze, her eyes bright behind her wired rimmed glasses, a towel wrapped around her waist, “OH MY GOD!” she’d exclaimed.

“Here you are! I had no idea there was an upstairs women’s’ locker room!” PP had cried, so happy and relieved to see DL.
“Where were you?” DL asked, the panic melting off her face.
“Downstairs!”
DL broke into a grin, “Upstairs, Downstairs.”

“Yeah, something like that,” PP laughed, her having to go to the bathroom suddenly hitting her hard.
“Okay, well, I’m so glad I found you,” she’d said, “Meet you downstairs?”
”Yeah, yeah....just give me a few minutes. I’ll be down after I put some clothes on.”

After PP finishes telling the story, Sandy laughs.“If you’d peeked behind her and seen Erica Kane working out, then you’d really know you were in a Parallel Universe!”

And it’s true. If La Kane had been there in her little black stretch pants and designer sneakers, lifting weights with her perfect make-up, it wouldn’t really have surprised PP at all.

Parallel Universes. Missing Persons. Sauna Liars.

It was all just another day in the life of a swimmer. In an Alternate Universe, that is....

Missing Person!

2011-05-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

Where the hell is DL?

PP’s been hanging out in the Berktopia Sauna chatting with Sandy about what else? All My Children. Who will discover that Erica Kane is in fact a crazed fan gone plastic surgery hog wild? Will it be her fiancé, Jackson? Or her lesbian daughter, Bianca? Or her archrival, Greenlee?

Everyone acknowledges that Erica hasn’t been herself since the kidnapping, but.....
Will anyone ever figure it out?

Yet, as PP and Sandy speculate about the possibilities of discovery, PP has this nagging worry as their talk continues.

DL was supposed to meet her in the sauna at 9:30 and it must be 9:45 by now.

Where the hell is she?

She’s never late—unusual for an Italian-- but there you have it.

Something’s very wrong.

Of course, PP jumps to the worst possible scenarios:

She’s fallen off the treadmill and been carted off to the emergency room.

She’s had a psychic breakdown from the unfamiliarity of Berktopia being thrust upon her, so now, she’s out on the streets of Berkeley, wandering aimlessly up and down Addison, strange weirdos accosting her in the darkness.

She’s passed out behind the counter of the Y, hidden away in a room with concerned YMCA clerks waving smelling salts under her nose.

Okay, she’s not in a Victorian Novel, but you all get PP’s anxiety.

Where oh where is she?

It had been a strange night to begin with. The Oakland Y was closed due to ‘paint fumes’ from an outside source—mysterious and stupid, but they’d been forced to venture into Berktopia spontaneously. Spontaneity with PP and DL is sometimes ok and sometimes not. DL had seemed unnerved this eve by being at Berktopia, so now that she’s gone ‘missing’ PP unlike the citizens of Pine Valley, knows that something is WRONG!!!!!

PP interrupts Sandy’s monologue about Greenlee being the most likely to succeed, “Have you seen DL tonight?”
”Nope.”
“That’s so weird. She was supposed to meet me at 9:30 here. What time is it now?”
Sandy leans out and over to glance at the clock, “It’s about 9: 43.” (PP always thinks it’s funny that she says ‘about’) but tonight, it doesn’t strike her as funny.

Only as Anguish! 9:43! DL is 13 minutes late! What can it mean?

“I better go look for her,” PP rises, pulling her damp suit back on and weaving through the crowd of Japanese beauties to exit the sauna.
“You could have her paged,” Sandy suggests.
PP nods, relieved to have a plan of action. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Good luck.”

PP wanders out, wrapping her towel round her waist wondering if she should go to the bathroom before venturing on her mission.
Decides against it. Time is of the essence. The Y is gonna close soon and she must find DL before it’s too late.
Not to be melodramatic or anything.
But it felt this way.

PP hurries up the stairs. Decides to take a quick look around all the exercise rooms before going to the extreme of having DL paged. Maybe she just got caught up in Ameircan Idol and lost track of time?

The floor cold on her bare feet, PP thinks for a minute how she shoulda put some shoes on, but then she was in her swimsuit and so....

It didn’t matter.

Hurrying though the weight room and then the treadmill room PP glances around. No DL in the weight room. She’s not on the treadmills though it was hard to tell where the room ended what with all the goddamn mirrors. PP’s anxiety exacerbates the mirror distortion.

Damn.
Where the hell is she?

PP rushes back down the stairs to ask for the Paging Element.

A Big Pasty Clerk is chatting amiably with a Big Pasty Berkeleyite.
“I told myself I wasn’t gonna make it tonight. And then here I am.”
”That’s the important thing, Doreen,” PBC guffaws.
“And then my car was towed and I had to call my ex husband to help....”

PP sighs loudly, glaring at them. Don’t they know that she’s in the middle of a crisis? That there’s a missing person at the Y and she needs answers pronto!?

“Excuse, me,” PP finally butts in, “but can you page someone for me?”
They both look at her likes she’s crackers.
“We don’t have a paging system,” BPC shakes his head.
“You don’t?” PP is staggered by this information. How could that be? What do they do when the need to announce closing time? To call a staff member to the Welcome Center
To find a MISSING PERSON????

PP is beside herself.

What the hell was she gonna do?

~to be continued~

Fantasy

2011-05-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

“How was your swim?”

Modest Vietnamese Woman tilts her pretty head, thinking. “It was so peaceful. ….I had my own lane. ……The water was warm.” She considers for a moment, “There was no one else in the pool.”

PP laughs.

Of course, it’s all Fantasy. There was NO One in the pool tonight. The pool was closed due to “Mechanical Failure.”

PP had arrived for her usual Wed eve Oakland Y “Girls Night” with DL. There had been a sign on the door—-big red letters explaining the pool closure. But all PP saw was Pool Closure.

She couldn't believe it. 2 Pool Closures in 3 days! Last Sunday at Hilltopia had been Mayhem Hell. First Hector's Swim Party jamming screaming kids into the pool with so many writhing little bodies that two lap lanes had been taken away. Then the 'Emergency' where everyone had been forced out of the pool with rude whistling and no explanation, "What's going on?" PP had asked. "Why do we hafta get outta the pool?" She'd only been swimming about 25 minutes; less than half of her swim completed. Swimus Interruptus was hella cranky!

"It's a Personal Space Issue" the lifeguard had said, waving his arms frantically to clear the pool of Hector's revelers.
"What does that mean?" PP had asked.

PP hadn't found out till later. Someone had almost passed out in the pool. She'd seen a shaky blobby man in the corner being supported by his blobby wife when she was getting out and had wondered if he was the culprit for her Swimus Interruptus.

And yes, it turned out that his blood sugar had been too low.

Shit. Eat a goddamn cookie before coming to the pool, why don'tcha? PP had thought. Don't kick us out before she's done with her swim for chrissakes!

And so now, tossing her fins on the counter, she couldn't believe that another pool closure was a part of her week.

Waiting for the busy clerk to finish ordering her Chinese Takeout, PP sighed loudly, shaking her head. “Excuse me, but I see the pool is closed and I didn’t get any notification about it. Aren’t you guys supposed to send out emails letting us know about this?”

Chinese Take Out Clerk was confused, casted about for help. Another clerk offered that it had just happened last night. PP glanced at the clock—7:35 pm. “So you had all day to email us though, right?”

The two clerks shrugged, glanced round nervously for more reinforcements. DL stood next to PP, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other, rolling her eyes.
To the rescue, Head Clerk, H, the Only Clerk Who Knows What's Going On, scurried up, “Do we have your email?”
“Yes,” PP tried not to scream.
“Is it Swimpurr at Yahoo?”
PP sighed, Damn. “No, actually that’s an old one. It’s on Gmail now, but Gmail imports all the yahoo email and I didn’t get anything today.”
“Are you sure?”
PP had to back down. Shit.

But somehow she knows they’re lying. The next day she did find out that, yes, in fact, no one had sent an email notification of the pool closure. She had been right, but at the time, she didn't know it for certain. No hard evidence. Only intuition. Which counts for nothing with the YMCA....

What can she do at the moment except follow H into the inner staff sanctum and type in her new Gmail account for future notifications.
Part of her is a bit excited about this back of the counter experience. But most of her is pissed off that she can’t swim.

She finished filling out the form, “Is that working for you?” H called out.
“Yup, done.” PP rose and followed DL down to the locker-room.

And so, when Modest Vietnamese Woman muses about her ‘swim’—PP has to grin. Maybe Pool Closures are good for something. Fantasy. Imagination. Community.

Of which there had been much in U.

“They’re gonna cancel All My Children. Oprah’s gone now. Gonna replace her with another hour of news. I ask you, how many ways can you hear about Arnie dickin around?" Sandy hurrmphs as she moseys out of the sauna.

DL and PP crack up.
How many ways indeed!

The problem with Arnie is that he got caught in his 'Fantasy'--Reality sucks, doesn't it Arnie?

Esp for Maria.

But Maria would survive. She'd go on Oprah. Divorce Arnie. Take a fabulous vacation. Swim in the sea where no emergencies would happen.

PP wants Maria's Fantasy, now.

But not before she has her cookie. That's the most important part of the fantasy.....Well, except for the beautiful, empty warm watered pool.

I Have A Story To Tell

2011-05-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

“Excuse me Ladies….” Travel Story Woman inserts herself between PP and Sandy, who’s been narrating her own update to PP about who is kidnapping Erica Kane.

The other women between the rows of lockers are all standing, sitting, squatting in various stages of dressing before getting kicked out of the Downtown Oakland Y: DL sits on a stool next to PP playing with her lotion top; Susie tugs at peach colored tights between Death Hacks; Modest Vietnamese Woman struggles to put on her clothes under her towel without anyone glimpsing her private parts.

TSW stares at PP pointedly for a few moments, her seriousness exuding what? Daring? Frustration? Insanity?

PP’s not sure; her Imposition was so startling. And as DL commented later, TSW’s interruption of Sandy’s monologue violated some sort of unwritten locker room code of conduct. If women were talking, let them talk. Don’t interrupt.
Esp. if the conversation revolved around soap opera.

And so the abruptness of her ‘Imposition’ takes PP by surprise. Where had she come from? Earlier, PP, DL and Sandy had all been listening to TSW’s rambling cross country train travel saga in the Utopia Sauna, then DL had left, then Sandy, then PP. After all it was 9:45, and the place was closing up in its usual obnoxious way.

“Attention all members and guests: the Downtown Oakland Y will be closing in 30 minutes.... Attention all members and guests the Downtown Oakland Y will be closing in 20 minutes…. Attention all Members and Guests…..” The countdown had already commenced 15 minutes ago when PP had left Utopia.

So, now when TSW physically inserts herself between PP and Sandy, the effect is not exactly threatening, but it is intense.

PP has to wonder what was up with her lately? Why did she seem to be attracting intense situations at the Y? First the Some Attitude Sauna Woman. Next Killing Children Sauna Family. And now?

But then again, maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe TSW just had a story to tell.

Or maybe she was just ‘crackers’ as DL had commented later.

“I haven’t finished telling my story,” TSW continues, “so if you don’t mind?”
Sandy jumps in, the leader of the locker room women. “No, of course not. Please continue.”

PP breathes a sigh of relief. She’d been tempted to do what? Tell her no I don’t want to hear the end of your story. Cuz to be honest, PP thought that the story had already ended.

Or that it would never end. Meeting TSW in the showers after leaving Utopia, she’d cornered PP again, continuing the train travel ramble. PP had nodded and said something about the circularity of the story and TSW had nodded, given PP that crazed too long stare and said, “Yes, ma’am, 360 degrees.”

And that had been that.
Till now.

“I was stuck in Reno without money and I tried to buy me a ticket and you know they wouldn't sell me a ticket without a driver’s license.”
“You’re kidding!!” PP exclaims. ““They wouldn’t take your money for a ticket?”

She stares at PP intensely for a moment, then shakes her head. “I’m a black woman. If a white person wanted to buy a ticket then I’m sure it’d be no problem.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” PP agrees, “I’m blond. I’m sure they’d sell me a ticket no questions asked.”
TSW nods, “That’s right. My mommy keeps telling me to come back to France. She don’t get what I go through here in this country being black.”
PP nods, “No, I can’t imagine,” And she can’t. From all of the stories she’s heard over the years from her students, the women at the Y, various friends—it’s hell to be black in America.

“Go on,” Sandy interrupts, sensing the sensitivity of the situation? “What did you do?”

TSW grins slowly, so pleased with herself now, “I stowed away!” she giggles.
“You’re kidding!” PP exclaims.
“Nope. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“I dunno. How’d you do it?”
“Well, when the conductor was going down the aisles asking for everyone’s tickets, I just made my way up to the restaurant car and when he was finished I just made my way back.”

“Wow,” PP shakes her head. “That’s astounding!”
“Yes, it was,” she agrees. “But like I said, what was I gonna do? I had no other way to get back home.”

Sandy nods now as does DL and PP. It was quite a story. “A story of Social Consciousness,” Sandy proclaims after TSW left. “For our day. The present day.”

PP is confused. Is Sandy referring to TSW’s story of Racist Travel Hell? Or was she back in Pine Valley, commenting upon Erica’s celebrity kidnapping?

It could be either, but PP chooses the former since it is the one most recently narrated. For this is the most astonishing part of the story. That this kind of story still happens today. In the 21st century.

Racism.

It is alive and well in America.

Sauna Trauma

2011-05-09T18:33:00.001-07:00

After her Sauna Trauma of the day before (see previous post), PP was in no mood. So when the mother ushered her two little girls into the sauna, PP let ‘em have it.

“You know the kids aren’t allowed in here,” she informed them.
Mom gave PP a blank stare, a shrug, and then the not so original response: “They just in here for few minutes.”

The two girls eyed PP widely, their chatter suddenly silenced.

“Well,” PP continued, “I did talk to one of the clerks upstairs about this issue and he told me that the sauna was a health hazard for kids.”

PP paused for effect: “….that it could kill them.”

Mom stared at PP for a moment. Trying to process the info? Trying to come up with a response? Trying to decide if she really wanted her kids or not?

For a moment, PP wondered if Mom was going to argue with her. Claim that how could only a few minutes harm her children? How could the sauna possibly kill them?

Yet, thankfully for her, she musta sensed that PP was having none of it when she ushered the girls out, “Come on, let’s not stay in here,” she murmured.

Lying back down in the dark heat, PP sighed. What was up with her Sauna Karma this weekend? Why couldn’t she just go for a swim, and then come in the sauna and relax?
Was that asking so much?

Evidently.

But with this small victory, PP had to smile. Maybe this was the last of her difficulties. From here on out, it would be back to Sauna Relaxation Situation.

Unless of course, this mom comes back for Revenge. Brings in a whole crowd of screaming little girls and lets them screech and jump and whine all over the sauna.

Here's where Some Attitude Woman might come in handy. With one Steely Stare, she'd be able to put the gang of unruly girls in their place: out of the sauna and into the pool. Preferably underwater.

See Some Attitude does have its purposes. Not the least of which puts PP in a much better mood!

Some Attitude

2011-05-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

“She had Some Attitude.”

PP sighs, relieved. It hadn’t been anything she’d done. “You noticed too?” she asks Curvy Latina.
CL nods, “Yeah.”
“Oh,” PP exclaims, “that makes me feel better. I thought it was something I’d done, but now that you say she had Some Attitude, well..... I mean, I didn’t think I’d done anything but....it’s just weird. Stuff like that doesn’t usually happen here.”

CL stretches one shapely brown arm out and over her head, “I know. And she was shaking her head when she left.”
“Really?”

Now PP shakes her head, trying to process the ‘situation.’ She’d had a nice swim, but hard. She’d been tired. The water had felt like Jell-O swimming through it. So when she’d finished, she was so looking forward to a nice relaxing sauna here at Hilltopia.

When she’d walked in, the sauna was not crowded exactly, but there was only one space on the top shelf, behind Gargantuan Towel Woman. PP likes the top shelf best since it’s the hottest. She’d glanced around and seen a spot on the bottom shelf in the opposite corner from GTW, but she didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t just sneak past GTW and sit above her. After all, that's what the two levels are for.

“Excuse me?” PP had asked GTW, softly, politely. “But do you mind if I just sneak past you and sit up there?” She’d pointed to the spot behind GTW, who just stared at PP like she was crazy. You wanna do what? Sit behind me? Like you think that there’s a bench there for other women to sit on? Oh, you are sadly mistaken. This entire section of the sauna is mine.

At least that’s what it felt like when GTW, after staring at her for a moment said, “What did you say?”

PP repeated her intention, knowing that GTW had heard her perfectly well the first time. Some sort of Power Thing was going on here.

“I need to keep my towel here," GTW motioned to a bright striped towel wrapped around her neck that fell onto a small portion of the top shelf. “I need it to keep warm.”

PP wanted to say that hell, weren’t you already warm in here, but refrained. She just wanted to lie down for chrrissakes! What was the problem? Was GTW afraid that PP, just out of the pool, was going to drip on her towel? Or was she feeling like her Personal Space was being invaded?

PP had no idea. It was too weird how GTW did NOT want to let PP slip in the spot above her. Hell, that’s what the sauna was built for. Two long benches. One below and one above, so that two layers of women can SHARE the sauna.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, GTW seemed to think she was entitled to an entire quarter of the sauna, both bottom and top shelf.

PP made to step around her in spite of GTW’s Hostility Wall Of Keep Away From Me, forcing her to move her towel that had been touching the top shelf so that PP wouldn’t touch it. Not that PP had any intention of touching her or her towel! If that was even the issue.

PP could feel the wrath of the high level sour face on GTW and it was weird. Why did she care? It was a public sauna; not GTW’s private one. What was the problem anyway?
PP never liked to attribute subtle or not so subtle hostilities to Size or Race Biases, but could this be it?

Was GTW anti-small woman? Or was she just a stupid bitch?

PP crawled above GTW in stubborn but nervous refusal to let herself be intimidated. Sat down scrunched as small as she could make herself in the corner. The tension in the sauna was palpable.

What the hell? PP sat for a few moments, breathing slowly and quietly. Shit, she thought, then sighing, she lay down, keeping herself as small as possible by crossing her arms over her belly instead of her usual one over the top of her head stretch.

For she was small. It was no problem for her to fit up on the top bench even if GTW was 3 times her size.

PP tried to relax but it was impossible. She could feel GTW’s Hostile I HATE YOU FOR SITTING ABOVE ME VIBES.

Fortunately, after about 5 minutes, she rumbled up slowly, then hobbled out.

This is when CL noted her Bad Attitude. “And did you see? She was shaking her head at us when she was walking out?” CL observes.

PP tries to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It was just weird, “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. ”
“Did something happen with you too?” PP asks.
Sighing, Curvy Latina shakes her head, “Yeah, when I came in she was sitting there, taking all that space" –she had no qualms about calling it as she saw it---"and when I wanted to sit down, she made some comment about someone’s bra being there and when I said that I thought it was hers she just gave me this Look and so I climbed up here and let it go.”

Nodding, PP sighs again; well at least it wasn’t just her. It wasn’t like GTW was targeting insolent blonde petite swimmers.

But now, since Curly Latina wasn’t blonde or petite, PP had to just chalk it up to GTW’s sour mood. It seemed she had it in for everyone that dared to enter Her Sauna!

“Maybe she’s just havin a bad day,” CL offers, eyeing PP sideways and smiling.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Maybe it’s Mother’s Day.”
“Mother’s Day puts people in bad moods?”
CL shrugs, “Maybe. I dunno. All's I know is that with That Attitude, she’s not gonna make any friends."
“And you know what?” PP giggles now, “I saw her pick up her gym bag and it said, ‘Live, Laugh, Love.’”

“Well, she ain’t doing any loving today!” CL scoffs. “I gotta go pick up my kid. He’s still in the pool.”

“Ah, okay. Well, have a great Mother’s Day,” PP called after her.
CL shrugs, then smiled. “Thanks. See you.”

Lying back down, PP sighs, relieved to be alone for a last moment in the sauna.
She was all for Some Attitude.
As long as it wasn’t directed at her!

Blood & blood & more blood....

2011-05-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

"We see blood. We see it. We have to see the blood. We do not know if no blood….”
Diabetes Woman is on a Blood Rant when PP and DL enter Utopia. PP knows what it’s probably about, but has to ask anyway.

“What are you talking about?”

Sandy shakes her head, a smirk on her face, “You know what she’s talking about.”
Busted.
Osama Bin Laden. Who else?

Such Blood Talk scares PP mightily. She gets, on an abstract intellectual level, the emotional righteous passion surrounding his killing. But her own gut reaction is: the whole thing is eerily weird. All the Patriotic Fervor in front of the White House that smacks of college kids out for any excuse to drink and wave the flag. Sure, The Guy was a Demon, but still…

The Celebratory Party Atmosphere of it all just creeps her out.

So, now in Utopia with DW ranting on about the Blood, she just feels confused and grossed out.

Sandy, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying the show.
“You think I am crazy?” DW demands of Sandy.
“No, no, you’ve got a right to your opinion," Sandy says, grinning.

“That Osama Bin Laden, you understand, he is the Devil. And his children, they are the Devil. It is in the blood, you know?” DW glares at PP demanding a response.

On the spot, PP nods grasping for something to say, “Like it’s passed on from generation to generation?” she ventures.

DW waves her hands around before letting them continue their under the breast rubbing ritual, “That is right! It is the generation. Like you say!”

Another Ethiopian Woman, or at least PP assumes she is since DW rattles off quick asides in her language to her, starts to giggle. “You are so funny,” she says.

“What so funny!” DW demands. “He was Evil man. He deserve to die. He killed thousands and thousands of people. Innocent people women children babies. What funny about that?”

“Nothing,” AEW continues to grin, “It’s just you’re funny is all. When you said about it’s like Africa. How they get into power and stay in power for 30, 40 years.”

“Africa!” DW stands up, waves her hands dramatically toward all of them, “Africa Stupid!”

Now everyone laughs. PP can see DL’s glasses jiggling on her belly from the giggles. PP has no clue what the Africa Stupid proclamation has to do with Osama Bin Laden. Maybe he aspired to a dictatorship of Ethiopia and it's only just being revealed now in the Sauna at the Oakland YMCA?

“WHAT WHAT WHAT so funny?” DW proclaims, but then she too dissolves into a broad grin. “Okay, okay, you all think I’m crazy. That ok. I don’t mind. I go now.”

Grabbing her soaked towel from the soggy bench, she heads out of the sauna, letting the door close behind her, a sudden quiet calm filling the room.

“On a totally different note, did you see Susan Lucci on Jay Leno the other night?” Sandy asks PP.

"Wow, no. Wonder how I missed that?"
"I have no idea. Seems like something you woulda caught. Anyway, she was saying how....."

PP tries to listen, but the images of a bloody terrorist keeps crowding out the All My Children gossip.

"....and she said that she had had no idea they were canceling the show till the week before we, the public, found out. Can you believe that?" Sandy asks PP, eyeing her intently.

Shaking her head, PP smiles, "No, that's hard to believe. And how long has she been on that show? 47 years?"
"Over 40."
"It's criminal," PP comments.
Sandy nods, gathering up her towel, water bottle, foot scraper, etc. "That's one way of putting it," she agrees as she exits the sauna.

PP sighs, gathering up her stuffs. It's been a long day. The Osama Bin Laden Blood Rant took a lot out of her.

And now the news of Susan Lucci's Kept in the Dark Layoff.

Well, it was all just too much.
There was just way too much carnage in the world. And sure how can you compare the killing of Osama Bin Laden to the Layoff of a Soap Opera Diva?

You can't really.
Or can you?

A Chlorinated Proposal

2011-04-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

“I just don’t think I coulda manipulated the situation to a happy ending….” Sandy shakes her head as she rubs lotion meditatively into her toned tummy.

They’d been talking about chlorine in the pool. How since all of the Brown Alerts of the previous summer, the Oakland Y had upped the concentration. Sandy had asked PP if she’d noticed the more intense concentration of chlorine. PP had responded with, not really. The Oakland Y’s chlorine level seemed always to be the worst of any pool she’d ever been in.

“Why the hell they just couldn’t require the kids to wear water diapers is beyond me!” Sandy had exclaimed.

“Yeah, it makes no sense,” PP had agreed. “Every other pool I’ve been to requires the babies to wear ‘em. But there’s enough chlorine in the pool to kill anything I’d think,” she'd added, laughing.

Sandy had nodded, “And hopefully it’ll kill the babies too!”
Delighted with Sandy’s Babycide Desire, PP had laughed. “It’s a theme!”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier today I was working with a student on Swift’s “Modest Proposal” and you know he’s all about killing the babies and making yummy stews out of ‘em!”
Sandy had grinned, “That’s right. Thanks for reminding me of that!”

“Yeah, but this student, she thought that he was really meaning to eat the babies. You know, literally. She was very disgusted.”
“Wait a minute….” Sandy had paused in her lotion application ritual, “you’re kidding me, right?”
“Nope,” PP had shaken her head.

How to explain that the idea of satire is beyond most of the average person’s conception. If this weren’t the case, then reality shows wouldn’t be as popular as they were. PP has no idea what she means by this, only that somehow Beverley Hills Housewives was satire to her, but to other viewers? Maybe not so much. Though come to think of it, she doesn't know anyone else who partakes of such guilty pleasures. She was almost certain that Sandy didn't.

And so, after PP had mentioned the student's literal mindedness round Baby Stew, Sandy had just stood there, in mid-lotion application, astounded, “I just don’t think I woulda been able to manipulate the situation to a happy ending.”

PP had laughed, “Yeah, well, I don’t think I did. I mean, I think I kept it from being an absolute tragedy, like if those babies in the pool were really in danger of being gassed by chlorine the lifeguard would at least have been able to prevent that. But they’d still be damaged. You know?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sandy had nodded. “Their little faces would be all scrunched up in chemical anguish!”
PP had laughed. Did Sandy really say that?
Who cares?
Swift would have liked the image, right?

After all "A Modest Proposal" is just that, all about the image. And the seasoning. And the tenderness. And the screams of agony....

Would A Chlorinated Proposal, if PP were to write it, be seen as satire?

Somehow, she doubts it.

Though if she showed it to Sandy, well, she'd surely at the very least, get A Modest Chuckle.

The Hug

2011-04-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

“EEEEUUUUWW, Gross!” PP exclaims, dancing around the puddle on the disgusting locker room floor. She’s just accidentally soaked the bottom of her skirt in the mucky water. Lifting up the edge of it, she tries to shake the wet spot out.

Malena giggles, delighted. “It’s just water,” she grins.
“Yeah, I know, you’re right, but it’s yucky!”

M laughs again, her eyes sparkling behind her thick foggy glasses. “I have a hula hoop,” she announces, trying to detract PP from her water grossness obsession?

She pulls out a black, red, and blue striped hula hoop from her locker; folded in half now, she unravels it and shows it to PP, who’s sitting down, pulling her Kitty Kat socks on, having given up on the skirt dampness.

M stares at the cat socks, but makes no comment as she holds the hula hoop up for PP to admire.
“That’s super cool,” PP smiles, “Did you take a hula hoop class tonight instead of swimming?”

Earlier M had plopped down on the sauna bench adjacent to PP, already dressed in her “I Heart NYC” t-shirt and black stretch pants. Her long dark hair wet and stringy.

“You weren’t in the pool tonight?” PP had observed.
“No, I’m too tired,” M had sighed.
“Yeah, me too,” PP had agreed, thinking of how exhausting the pool has been lately. Full of screaming kids splashing and novice lap swimmers crashing. Summer was coming. Ugh.
“I’m hungry too,” M had announced.
“Oh, yeah, me too,” PP had agreed, “What’re you gonna eat?”
She’d shrugged, “I dunno. Probably a cereal.”
“Sounds good,” PP had nodded, rising and heading out of the sauna.
“Same old thing!” M had pronounced, referring to their Tuesday night shared locker area as she followed PP out.
“Yup, same thing,” PP had agreed, “I know it’s Tuesday cuz of you!”
M had giggled, so easily amused by PP’s random nonsenses.

Now, with the hula hoop, M glances around, “No room here,” she muses.
“Nope,” PP’s gathering up her lotions and hair brush, preparing for the next phase of the getting out of here ritual. Heading over to the mirrors, she thinks of how she really needs to get out of the Y before she faints from hunger and exhaustion. It’s been a long day.

M appears behind her, stands next to the mirrors in a space that may be roomy enough for a hula hoop demo. She gives it a try, but the hoop knocks into a locker. She sighs, then smiles, glancing up at PP who’s trying to get the goddamn tangles out of her wet hair.

“Guess there’s not quite enough room here, eh?” PP observes as she picks up the blow dryer and attempts to administer its half-assed warming agents.

M continues to try the hula hoop, but then after it falls down again, her rounded hips unable to keep it going, she sighs. Giving PP a shy smile, she heads back to her locker.

A few moments later, while wringing out her suit at the sink, PP feels a firm, shy arm wrap around her from behind. A wet head nuzzles into her side, resting on her.

It’s M, giving PP the sweetest Surprise Hug. “Oh….” PP exclaims, touched. “A hug! That’s so sweet. If my hands weren’t wet, I’d hug you back.”

M continues to hold PP, gently but firmly for several seconds, her arm wrapped around PP’s waist possessively.

Her affection does surprise PP. She’s not used to such advances, esp. from sweet youngsters. PP’s not sure exactly what inspired M to give her a hug this evening. Was it her jokes about the gross water? Her willingness to watch the hula hoop demo? The commiseration with being tired and hungry?

Maybe all of the above? PP, nevertheless, is genuinely touched by M’s gesture.

It’s not often that appreciation and affection come at one out of the blue. And when it does, well, there’s a lot to be said for it, isn’t there? Esp. if it’s from a sweet girl who obviously has a lot of love to give, cliché as that sounds. PP’s just glad that she’s the lucky recipient of M’s fondness.

If only more of us showed our feelings so openly and spontaneously. It’d be a very different place, wouldn’t’ it?

M lets go and backs away, picking up her pink panther backpack and heading out of the locker room.

“Bye, bye,” PP calls after her. “You made my day!”

M giggles softly, shakes her head as she gives PP a little wave before trudging out into her world.

The Simpkins Family Swim Center

2011-04-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Anytime ‘family’ graces the name of a pool, PP knows that it bodes odiousity. And the Simpkin's Family Swim Center in the Live Oak neighborhood of Santa Cruz was no exception.

It wasn’t the pool. No, the pool was stupendous. 50 meters long. Divided into 18 wide wide lanes. When PP shared the lane, she could hardly tell there was someone else on the other side. Except for String Bikini Big Yellow Cap Girl. Swimming with her head held out of the water high. No goggles. Like she was playing water polo. But she wasn’t. She was racing some middle-aged dude in the lane next to PP and kicking his ass. Easily. Even with stopping at the wall at the end of every lap to re-tie her string round her neck.

But she only lasted 5 minutes. Had proved her point. 18 year old girls can out swim middle-aged dudes with one bikini string untied behind their necks.

Before String Bikini Girl was Hawaiian Swim Trunks Breast Stroke Guy. Quiet and slow and peaceful. Definitely PP had little inkling that she was sharing a lane with him.
Finally another beefy mid-aged guy (Was this the pool for this demographic?)barreled in, beating the water for the last 20 minutes of her swim. Yet again, the wide lane went far to mask the water beating action.

But before the swim, the real heniousity came in: The locker-room.

Initially, when PP had first entered the women’s locker room and come upon the tiny locker area—she’s terrible at space measurements, but maybe it was 10 X 12? Is that super small?--she was dumbfounded. She beheld only two narrow benches that could hold just one person’s stuff. (Well, PP’s stuff—maybe someone else’s stuff might be able to fit two people's stuff.) And two rows of lockers wedged into the corner and....

Okay, see? She can’t even describe it. It was so small. She’d thought that there must be another few rooms, identical to this one, if she just ventured around the corner, but no. Around the corner were the sinks and toilets. Then the showers. Then the door out to the pools.

Was it for real?

PP stood for a moment, awestruck, thinking, “Can I do this? Where am I gonna get changed? Should I just turn around and leave?” She glanced round at the full-to- capacity room of 3 moms, 4 kids, and a grandma sitting in the corner slowly rubbing lotion into her rolls of tummy.

“Here, let me move this for you,” One Woman offered, as she pushed aside her daughter’s Little Mermaid back pack.
“Thanks,” PP tried to smile, but didn’t manage a genuine one. Of this she was certain.

But she was here now. And the pool beckoned. Its 18 lanes enticing her. (Of course, 10 of the lanes were full of Special Olympics’ kids and parents. Here’s the family part. And what is it about the Special Olympics swim teams anyway? They follow PP and DHBF everywhere. At Hilltopia. Now at the Simpkins Family Swim Center.)

Yet, again, in the pool, all was bliss. Swimming under dusky sky, wispy with high pink clouds, the singing birds flitting about in the big tall trees surrounding the pool.... It was nice to be outside!

But as the time to close inched nearer, PP began to feel a bit panicky. She better get out of the pool and head to the showers before the onslaught of Special Olympics Families finished their workout.

And so she stopped. Giving herself 10 minutes before closing time. Heading into the locker-room to nab a shower.

Which she did, but Claustrophobia set in big time once she finished her shower. Crammed into the tiny locker-room, she tried to control herself.

Yet, she couldn't quite: “They coulda made the locker room a bit bigger,” PP grumbled as she tried to squeeze past a mom yanking on a pink and green striped sock of her Special Olympics Daughter. The daughter stared at PP, her bright red hair sticking out in all wet directions.
Another woman, PP didn’t even see who since she couldn’t turn around the space was so small, grunted a reply to her comment. Something like, “Uh, yeah….” Her voice trailing off. Like “Duh!” –we all know the locker room is too infinitesimally small for the size of any public family pool, let alone one of the Simpkin’s pool’s dimensions.

PP resisted a response, got herself dressed, and then ran out of the locker room, plopping herself on the carpet outside next to DHBF’s chair, where he was calmly reading Hunter S. Thompson. Finally, she could breathe now that she was out of the locker room.

“I hadda get outta there before I screamed.”
Nodding, DHBF finished his paragraph, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I’ve never seen such small locker rooms. I thought Mills was bad…”
“Nope. Mills is a Palace compared to this place,” he joked.

Laughing now as she dried off her cap, PP was suddenly confronted with a small person’s staring gaze. A boy round 4? 3? 5? Hell she can’t tell. “Did you have fun swimming?” she asked, trying to be kid friendly even though it went against the grain.
He nodded.
“How far did you swim?”
He held up both hands and spread his fingers.
“10 miles!” PP exclaimed. “Wow! You’re a fish!”
Singing Dad glanced over at them, “She's a Rock Bottomed Woman....", a dopey grin finishing out the refrain.

“Let’s get outta here,” PP nodded to DHBF, who grinned and started packing up.
“She’s a ….” SD wailed as 10 mile boy danced.

And even though the Simpkin's Family Swim Center sucks at locker room proportions, PP had to admit that the pool had been worth it.

Though she didn’t plan on going back there anytime soon!

Tarantula!

2011-03-24T18:35:00.001-07:00

“I think something bit me….” PP muses as she examines the small red bumps on her leg. Holding it up out of the hot tub, she glances over a DL.
“I woke up once and my eye was completely swollen shut. And then there were all of these layers of red scaling folds running down my cheek and……well, I was completely freaked out.”
“What was it?”
“A spider bite.”
“Really? A spider did all of that?”
DL nods, “It was awful.”

“Sounds super scary,” PP agrees. She can’t imagine. If she woke up with her face like that, she’d scream really loud.

That would help.

“You wanna go in Utopia,” DL heaves herself out of the hot tub, heads to the sauna.

“Hey, Sandy,” PP greets.
“Hello, Ladies.”
“DL was just telling me about a horrendous spider bite she got that…. Well, she can tell you.”
DL does. Sandy, of course, is all ears and questions. “Did they find out what kind of spider it was? You were asleep in bed when it happened? Why didn’t your cat catch it?”
“No, Yes, She was asleep, too.”
Sandy nods, “I had an ex-fiancé who got me a tarantula for a pet.”

“A tarantula!” PP exclaims, the image of her mother beating back one of the big black hairy monsters with a broom.
“Yup.”
“Why a tarantula?” PP asks.

Shaking her head, laughing, Sandy grins, “You see, there was this neighbor down the street who had the cutest rag doll Persian cat and they just ignored it like all get out and so every evening the cat would come to our door, knock knock, and we’d feed it and pet it, but then one day I realized that I was sniffling and my eyes were all red and watery. I was allergic to the cat.”

PP nods, wondering what the rag doll cat allergy had to do with tarantulas, but knew that patience was key here. If she just let Sandy talk, she’d get around to the arachnids.

“So my ex fiancé and his buddy,” she laughs. “Buddy....Cuz what do you call two forty something guys who go out and do such a thing as bring home a tarantula for a pet.”
“A pet tarantula?” PP asks, “Did you have.... what’s it called? A terrarium?”
“A terrarium? No,” she laughs again. “No, I told him to take the goddamn thing and put it back on Mt. Diablo where it belongs.”
“Did he?”
“Oh, yeah.”

“Is that where he got it in the first place?” PP asks, glancing over at DL who’s listening with rapt spider attention.
“No, he just found it in his back yard and caught it and presented it to me for my birthday.”
“Seems like a strange pet. I mean you can’t walk it or …..”
“Actually, you can. I don’t know about walking them, but they’re actually very sweet. Very good-natured.”

Again, PP conjures up the image of the big evil spider crawling menacingly out of the ‘forest’ in Hacienda Heights, her mother with the broom, ready to chase it or destroy it. At the time, it had been so scary, and of course, PP had been so relieved when her mom had done away with the savage monster.

But now a whole new world of good natured tarantulas was opened up to her.
Would the tarantulas of Hacienda Heights have made good pets?

PP shivers even in the heat of Utopia. Somehow she just can’t picture it. Having a tarantula for a pet. Way too big. Way too black. Way too scary.

No way.

And the same seemed to be true for Sandy, too, since she had her ex-fiancé get rid of her tarantula.

Surely DL’s spider bite hadn’t been a tarantula? She would’ve woken up if such a creature had been crawling under her sheets and….

EEEECCCCKKKK!!!!

PP glances around U. The two women are staring at her. Had she just shrieked for real?
“....and birds are better pets than people know. They’re actually quite possessive….” Sandy continues, DL nods, PP grins.

How’d they get from tarantulas to birds?

See, that’s what she gets for allowing her imagination to run away. She loses the thread of the story.

Though in this case, the loss of thread might be just what she needs for an apt conclusion.

After all, how did she get from showing her bites to DL to a story about Tarantulas?

She never knows. It just happens.

Reality

2011-03-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

‘That is such a cute suit!’ Sandy exclaims from her end locker vantage point as PP wriggles into the new cute suit.
“Thanks.”
“So Retro. Love it!” Sandy continues, turning away from PP and rummaging through her locker. “Too cute to be wasted on this pool.”

Laughing, PP shakes her head, wondering what this means. Like she should be lounging about in the Bahamas, drinking Mai Tais and turning heads?

“Well, it’s this pool or Hilltopia,” PP says instead of sharing her sexy tropical vision with Sandy. Not that Sandy wouldn’t have liked it. But PP had to get into the pool now or she wasn’t gonna get a swim in. And she needed a swim even though, like on all Wed eves, she was beyond tired.

Why did it feel extra specially so this eve?
Radiation poisoning?
Shit.

Everyone was going on and on about the nuclear plant melt down in Japan after the horrific earthquake and tsunami. Like the poison particles were gonna float through the air 5000 miles and cause millions of cases of thyroid cancer to the unsuspecting populace of California.

Was this really possible?

Sandy nods when PP mentions this worry later. “Yeah, well, I dunno. I suppose it could be. But I’ll tell you what I’m worried about that no one is talking about. The water. That’s what I’m concerned about. The disaster over there was caused in part by water and so it makes sense that the nuclear waste would get absorbed in the water and then be carried across the ocean to us.”

PP sighs. Damn. Another thing to worry about. She just wished that she could stay in the pool and swim and swim and never get out so that she wouldn’t have to hear about such things.

But of course, this isn’t possible.
She’d get too cold.
Or too hungry.
Or too tired.

Plus even as she swims, her mind keeps on worrying. Hell, what were all these Californians panicking about? Sure, the radiation might, just might, waft over the sea and contaminate them.

But in the meantime, what about all of the horror that the people of Japan are going through right at this moment? No water. No food. No electricity. Hundreds of people dead and missing. It was too horrific to contemplate for long.

And so she wished that she could go on swimming, up and down, up and down. Lap after lap.

Yet swimming was the answer only for 45 minutes or so. After that, well, Reality has to takeover, as much as she tried to fight It.

Dropping her cute new suit, now a wet ball after her swim into a plastic bag, PP sighs again as she tried to get her stuff together to head home.

But then, hilarity sets in with the Utopian Women.
Suzie says something about ‘sensible’? "What do we know about that?”
And Sandy laughs and nods, as PP grins, “Nothing. We know nothing about being sensible. It takes way too much effort. I try to avoid it whenever possible.”

Suzie slaps her skinny pink corduroyed thigh, Sandy smiles, DL gives PP a look, like Can we get the hell outta here?

This is what PP pays attention too, of course. DL’s the Queen of Silent Communication.

Something PP wishes more people had just a little bit more of, esp. lately with so much Disaster in the air.

In Memoriam: Wispy, the Sweetest Cat in the World

2011-03-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

“Where’s Wispy?”
I’m visiting Ian’s Fruitvale Château, where Wispy, the Queen of the Spots, has resided for several years.
“She’s in her latest Spot,” Ian grins, leading me into the living room to point at the napping lump of gray fur, her Spot this day being on the kitty rug in front of her bay windows, looking out over E 16th street. Of course, Wispy isn’t gazing at the view. At least not right now, but is deep in Kitty Dreamland.
"That’s a New Spot, isn’t it?” I ask, bending down to ‘pat’ her on her smooth round head. IPR [Instant Purr Response] starts up immediately. She is the Sweetest Cat.
“Yes. It is a relatively New Spot. Last week she was on the corner of the bed, the week before she was in front of the heater.....”
“Well, of course, that’s the warmest spot in the house. She’s no idiot.”
He laughs, “That’s true. It’s just so cute. Every so often she moves to a new spot and then that’s the spot for a few days or a few weeks and then she abandons that spot and moves on to the next.”
“She’s an Apartment Spot Traveler!” I joke, sitting down on the floor to continue the purring rubs, which have now turned into sweet, “Mrrreeoww. Mrrreeoow’s.”
Ian nods, smiling down adoringly at his Sweet Kitty.
“She really is the Sweetest Cat,” I proclaim, as Wispy rubs her head against my hand, demanding more ‘pats.’
"Yes, she is,” Ian agrees, before heading back into the kitchen to check the broccoli.

“Hey, Wisperator!’ I call out, walking through the apartment looking for her.
“That’s a cute name,” Ian follows me, “Wisperator Wisperator... Oh, Wispy!”
“You don’t think it’s too much like the Terminator?” I ask, finding The Wisperator in her latest spot, on the arm of the green couch, in her yoga stretch position. One paw lying cutely crossed over the other. This is one of her favorite poses. She’s so relaxed, yet such a poser too.
“No,” Ian grins, leaning over to pat her paws. (She’s one of those rare cats who not only allows this, but also seems to enjoy it) “I think it’s a cute name.”
“Super cute,” I laugh as we both gaze down at her.

“You know what the cutest thing about Wispy is?” I ask, as we hang out after dinner, Wispy sitting on Ian’s lap.
“No,” he smiles, patting the Purring One.
“She always has her Wispy Smile on.”
“Yeah,” Ian laughs, “that’s true.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons she’s the Sweetest Cat in the world. Her Kitty Smile is always beaming.”
“Yes,” he agrees, examining her smile, “it certainly is one of the reasons.”
“Of course, the real reason is just cuz she is the Sweetest Cat in the World,” I proclaim.
He grins, “Yup, you’ve got that right.”

And she was. The Wisperator. The Wispy. The Queen of the Spots. The Sexy Yoga Poser. The Constant Smiler.

Wispy was the Sweetest Cat in the World.

And we’ll all miss her terribly.
But her ‘smile’ lives on in our hearts, as corny as it sounds.
Somehow, I think she wouldn’t mind ‘corny’.

For after all, she was the Sweetest Cat in the World!

The Unexpected

2011-03-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

“The pool, it was good tonight, yes?” Beautiful Serene Vietnamese Woman asks PP as she and DL tumble tiredly into Utopia.

“Yeah, the temperature was nice,” PP responds, settling into her corner while DL plops down on the bench below. “But I had the Splashy Guys Experience.”

BSVW nods, “Yes.”

“You timed it just right, leaving when you did. You know the one with all the Stringy Grey Hair who pounds the water to create waves galore?” PP asks.

“AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!” she cries, sitting up and tossing her long dark hair out of her face. “THAT GUY!!!!”

DL giggles along with PP even though she doesn’t know who SGH Splasher is. Later DL tells PP how BSVW’s response was so unexpected. She’s always so calm and quiet and well, serene. So this emotional outburst of Swimmer’s Ire was even funnier.

“My husband,” she continues, wrapping her dark hair into a neat bun on top of her head, “he tells me That Guy, he plays the drums” (She motions like there’s a bongo in front of her to beat on) in the man’s sauna.”

Giggling, PP nods, “That doesn’t surprise me. I believe it.”

“Too much energy, That Guy,” she pronounces, lying back down,sighing loudly.

And PP has to agree that this may be the crux of his splashing problem. He has to beat the water as hard as he can and make as many waves as possible because he needs a release for all of that excess energy.

Something PP doesn’t get. She never has excess energy. Esp. on Wednesday evenings after her long work day. She’s always amazed when she gets to this point in the day here in Utopia, ready to collect a story or two for her blog.

DL rises, heading for the cooler climes outside of Utopia.
“You getting too hot?” PP asks her.
She nods, can’t speak she’s so hot. Another thing PP doesn’t get since she’s always cold. Except in Utopia. One of the many reasons it is Utopia.

Beautiful Serene Vietnamese Woman being another. Esp. when she surprises PP with her hilariously apt reaction to a common Oakland Y pool phenomenon: drum playing, water beating, too energetic swimmer guys.

We Are So Sad!

2011-02-23T12:30:00.000-08:00

“We are so sad!” Indian Water Walker proclaims to all the women dressing, grumbling in the aisle.

The sauna is Out of Order.

It is a day of great sadness and complaining and coldness.

Before swimming, PP had heard the Water Aerobics Women, who’d just been in the pool, complaining about how cold they were & offering a variety of solutions:

“I’m just gonna go home and put my pajamas on!” “I know someone. She just puts on her pajamas right here after her workout.” “My son, I got him some of those pajamas and he liked them so much he was wearin' them all the time. I tell you I am sick of those pajamas.” “I’m gonna go home and make me something hot to drink.” “I’m gonna make me some hot cereal.” “Mmmm…hot Oatmeal.”

“I’m gonna go home and make me a cocktail!”

PP laughs along with them as she pushes her stray hairs up into her cap in front of the mirror where they’re all working their post workout beautifying. Usually, PP would be putting her cap on in the sauna, but the Out of Order sign, which she ignored at first, (How could it be? She’d just been in the sauna yesterday and it was fine!) was right. When she’d opened the door a cold silent emptiness greeted her.

Damn.

We are all so sad!

After her swim, IWW harrumphs around in the shower. Shaking her head. “We need the sauna!” PP offers, knowing intuitively that this is what all the harrumphing is about.
“I KNOW! WE DO! It is not right!”
“Yeah, the pool is cold,” PP agrees, joining in the complaining, an activity near and dear to her heart, esp. when it involves temperature.

“YES it is! And when the water is cold they need to fix the sauna!”
“What are our fees for anyway?” another woman joins in.
“That is absolutely right!” IWW agrees, then heads back into the shower, still shouting something about the broken sauna, but by this time, PP is wet and cold and without the sauna, cranky, and so she just ignores the rest of the Shower Rant and heads back to her locker.

IWW arrives shortly after her. Bird Tattoo Woman is cranky, too, as she peels off her black spandex to show off her cockatoo. “I worked out upstairs. And one of the machines is broken. And I wanted a sauna and now you tell me it is broken.”

She pouts.

IWW nods, “We are all so sad!” she proclaims again.

And we are.

I Don’t Have Favorites!

2011-02-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

“Ahhhhrrrgggh!” she play acts, pretending that she’s mad, upset, put out over PP showing up at the same locker again. Throwing up her hands in mock exasperation. Knocking her forehead in pretend frustration. Grinning from ear to ear.

“Here we are again!” PP calls out as she languids down the aisle to her locker, grinning at Pretend Girl. “Must be Tuesday!”

PG laughs, nods and smiles as PP comes up to the locker next to hers and starts to unwind the combination. “Did you have fun in the pool tonight?” PP asks her as she pulls her pile of clothes out of the too small locker, trying not to drop her fuzzy purple skirt on the wet cement floor.

“Yeah,” PG shrugs. “I gotta go find my mom and see if she has my other clog.”

“Oh, okay,” PP nods as PG shyly reaches inside her own locker and pulls out a flip flop. Is a flip flop a clog? Does she have one flip flop foot and one clog foot?
Who knows?

But one thing PP does know is that PG loves swimming. When PG is in the pool it's pure giggling fun with her mom and dad (PP guesses). She dives under the lanes in front of the lap swimmers (PP doesn’t care with her—she’s just having so much fun); slams through the water in a spastic imitation of the crawl; hangs on her parents, laughing joyfully.

Yet like the other child PP saw over the summer, there’s something ‘up’ with her. More autism? Perhaps. PG’s eyes are too big and round and stare kinda sideways out of her fleshy brown face. Her speech is carefully weighed before she speaks. Her manner is just a little off.

How old is she?

PP can’t tell. Certainly not 16 (like the rules for the locker-room state & everyone ignores) But then, maybe this is it. Maybe she is 16 and she acts and looks like a
10 or 11 year old?

Whatever the ‘different ability’ is that she has, PP still knows one thing: she has a sly sense of humor.

Like the play-acting greeting just now. So fun and unexpected, completely delighting PP on this tired post swim Tuesday eve at Hilltopia.

“Did you find your clog?” PP asks PG when she returns. PG stares at PP, mystified. Then shrugs. “Yeah.”

But no clog in hand. So…? Maybe she hadn’t said clog at all in the first place?

“Are you hungry after swimming?” PP asks, changing the subject.
“Yeah.”
“What’re you gonna eat when you get home?”
“Some cereal.”
“That sounds fun. What kind?”
She stares shyly at PP. Why is she being bombarded with all of these questions her look seems to say, though of course this doesn’t deter PP. She’s all about asking questions. It’s the answering them that she abhors.

“Some kind of ….” PG pauses, considering the cereal question, “….with honey?” she ventures.
“Oh, like Honey Nut Cherrios?” PP asks, not that she’s ever eaten such delectable fare, but she’s seen the ad on TV with the woman in the hard hat building a skyscraper and effusing over a bowl of it.
PG shrugs, then smiles, “Yeah.”

There’s a silence. Why is PP so wanting to engage her tonight? Is it because she’s been saddled with dense abstract meaningless academic writing all day and the idea of discussing Cherrios is appealing?

“You have school tomorrow?” PP continues inanely.
“Yeah.”
“What’s your favorite subject?”

PG stares at the ground for a moment, then up at PP, her gaze fierce, “I don’t have favorites!”

Wow! PP’s totally thrown by the intensity of this response. She has favorites of everything. Favorite color: blue; favorite cat: Sylvia; favorite TV show: All My Children. But decides against insisting this propensity for favoritism on PG. Instead goes for the diplomatic answer, not her favorite, but sometimes necessary.

“That’s good not to have favorites,” PP agrees.
“Yeah.”

PG doesn’t offer more and PP doesn’t press. It could very well be a sensitive topic for her. Maybe she wasn’t anyone’s favorite at home or school or with friends. Maybe since she’s “different” the reality of ‘favoritism’ was one she was keenly aware of.
Maybe it’s not such a good question to ask strange girls in the locker-room, PP thinks as she starts to pack up her bag to head out.

“Hey!” PP turns, smiling (or trying to), “we talk every Tuesday, but I don’t know your name. What is it?”
“Marlene.”
“Marlene?” PP grins, like Marlene Dietrich? Of course, she’s not going to have this film archive reference, though Bay Area Children can surprise you.

“No. With a e!”
“Oh, sorry. How do you spell it? M-E-L-E-N-A? Melena?”
She nods, pleased now. “That’s a very pretty name,” PP tells her as she closes her locker and heaves her swim bag up.

Melena smiles happily and shyly.
“See you next Tuesday,” PP says.
“Yeah.” Melena agrees as she turns away to focus her attention on getting home to her Cheerios. Which PP is sure, are NOT her favorite!

The Wrong Carrot

2011-02-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

The jacuzzi’s full of the post aerobic class women. Well, three of them by the time PP finishes her swim in the cute little West End Tennis Club pool.

When they’d arrived (PP and her Sis), the Aerobic Ladies were taking up the entire pool except for one lane where a diligent older gent was beating the water from end to end—you know that kind of lap swimming that seems to go backwards with a lot of splashing?

“Oh, I forgot about the aerobics,” Sis murmurs, not mentioning Backwards Gent.
“That’s okay,” PP nods, surveying the scene of bobbing sunhats of lavender, black and lime. “There’s still room.”

“No, you take the lane and I’ll wait,” Sis urges, but then just at this moment, as if she’d overheard? the Aerobics Instructor hollers at the women taking up a lap lane to move on over.

“Thank you!” Sis effuses to her, glancing over at PP who grins with pool takeover satisfaction. After all, the aerobics don’t need a lap lane and her sister does!
And so, now after their swim, lounging about in the Jacuzzi, PP sighs as she climbs in. It’d been a hell of a week. Her grandmother’s funeral, while quiet and nice, had been completely draining and so this day with her sister, beginning with a swim was such a treat.

And the Jacuzzi Women were just icing on the cake as the saying goes. Or in this case, bubbles on the water. Big Bubbles. Big Tan Bubbles. Big Tan Bubbles with lots of time on their hands. They volunteer. Travel the world. Eat exotic foods.

Or not so exotic.

The bread rhapsodizing that ensued evidenced just how unexotic their tastes really were. Which not to be snotty or anything, but fit Torrance to a T.

“When I was in Asia, I missed bread so much!”
“Me too!” PP joins in. “Where in Asia were you?”
“Japan.”
“Ah, I was in China and you just couldn’t find bread, at least not the kind of bread we have here: sour dough, wheat, …”
“I like Rye Bread!” Scrawny Tanned Woman interrupts. “In Germany, my husband, he always insisted on the Rye Bread.”
“It soaks up the butter best,” Sis offers.

They look at her for a second, then all nod in agreement. The comment took a moment to process, but Sis had said it all with her Butter Soak Up Proclamation. No further analysis was needed.

However, butter soaking properties or not, PP hates Rye Bread, yet decides against vocalizing this. She was outnumbered.

“I had to try to stop eating so much bread,” Asia Breadless Woman announces. (But maybe she didn’t really say this; PP could be making this part up to get to the heart of the story faster.) “I’ve lost 45 pounds!” she continues.
“Wow! That’s great!” Sis congratulates.

“Yeah, my aerobics teacher she has this website and she wants to put me on the Before and After, but I eat too much bread to be on the website. She keeps saying that if I just lost 15 more pounds I could be on her website. I hate to break it to her, but she’s holding out the wrong carrot. I have no desire to be on her website!”

She giggles conspiratorially. For of course, we all agree. Who’d want to be on one of those before and after sites? Of course many must since there’re such a plethora of them. And then there’s Oprah. She’s big on the Before and After. In fact, maybe she invented it. But that’s another blog.

PP admires Asian Breadless Woman for her anti before/after fame conviction. Hell, she’s not gonna give up bread for such an embarrassing enticement!

And PP wonders, is there a right carrot? Would ABW agree to the Before/After Photo Shoot with some other 'carrot'?

Well, you all know the answer to this.

Bread.
Rye Bread.
Wheat Bread.
French Bread.
Lots of Bread.

Of course, then there's the Oprah After/Before Syndrome, but hell, isn't bread worth it?

Happy New Year All You Bumps on a Log!

2011-01-11T18:22:00.001-08:00

“So, how’s everyone’s New Year’s so far?” Friendly Young Fella asks the group soaking in the hot tub. PP and DHBF are in Encinitas for the holiday visiting her family. And of course, the Magdalena Ecke YMCA is a must pool stop.

The pool had been freezing (at least by comparison with Hilltopia); PP was certain that the ‘competition’ pool was kept competitively cold for all of those competitors, of which she was not. However, the swim now completed, the Jacuzzi hit the spot.

No one answered FYF’s question. Everyone was either spaced out (like the Crossed-Eyed Blond sitting in the corner, the jets gurgling up her neck) or just not sure how to respond. After all, it didn’t seem like anyone knew FYF except for his two buddies who just grinned and said nothing too.

So, PP answered, cuz, hell, she knew she could at least write about it in her blog. “It’s going great now!” she laughed. “How could it not be in here?”
He nodded, appreciating a response? “Good point,” he grinned, glancing around at the other hot tubers all sitting like bumps on a log. Where did that saying come from anyway? Did logs really have bumps? It did seem apt though. If logs did have bumps, they wouldn’t be saying much or moving much or growing much? Maybe they would grow?

Yeah, this group was like a bunch of LARGE Growing Bumps on a log. No one had anything to say about their holiday.

But yet, this didn’t faze FYF. He just shrugged, eyeing PP speculatively, and then turning to his buddies, who started discussing some gross guy movie with one of those gross guy stars like Jim Carey, or Ben Stern, or are these names even right? You get the idea. The conversation now centered around peeing in the pool and how if you peed in the pool a tattle-tale red circle would float around you.

PP had heard of this growing up around pools, but had never witnessed it. Must be a pool pee Urban Legend.

Or just a great dumb topic for a group of young guys to joke about before they went out partying for their New Year’s eve.

Something, PP vaguely remembered doing.
Before she became a Bump on a Log.

Shit....Christmas!

2010-12-20T12:56:00.001-08:00

“SHIT!!!!” PP hears the curse, and then a giant THUD.
PP knows who the Curser is—Scraping Walker Woman. And the THUD must be her flailing and knocking something or falling and hurting something.

PP had made a resolution not long ago not to ask SSW if she needed ‘help.’ She can’t remember the details now of why she’d made this promise to herself. It musta had something to do with being made to feel stupid asking SSW if she needed help.
And so, today, her first impulse is to just ignore the curse and obvious (from the sound of it) injury. But yet….What if she really had hurt herself? And was lying over on the cold cement floor, 20 feet from PP, hidden by two rows of lockers, writhing in agony? Or passed out? Or bleeding to death? Or…..

Shit.

PP pulls on her black pants and marches over to SSW’s domain.
She’s there, as PP had pictured, crumpled in a heap on the floor, struggling with putting on her own pants.

“Are you okay?” PP has to ask now. She’s there.
SSW turns, totters on the floor, manages a grimace in PP’s direction. “Yes, yes, I’m fine!”
“Okay, just checking. I heard you….”
“Oh that!” SSW chuckles. “I was just thinking about this Christmas card that my sister-in-law sent me and it had all this religious junk on it….you know Mary and the Baby Jesus and……”

She harrumphs. “My brother is not particularly religious, so I don’t think it was his idea to send the card, and then I started thinking that I shouldn’t be having this reaction to the Baby Jesus and Mary. That I’m a Bad Person. But then I thought, 'No, I am not a Bad Person.' What do you think? Oh I’m so sorry if I’ve offended you. You might be religious and….”

PP laughs as she heads over to the counter to start brushing out the tangles. “No you haven’t offended me.”

“Oh, that’s good. That’s a relief. Because some people you know would be offended and I wouldn’t want to offend them and this damn mark on my face I fell on the carpet the other day. Can you believe that falling on the carpet would do this?”

PP had noticed the large dramatic purplish reddish blotch on SSW’s face when she’d been in the pool and SSW had been doing her herky jerky water walking. It looks bad, but PP doesn’t say this now. Not wanting to offend SSW. Though frankly she thinks that offending her would be pretty hard.

“And when I fell, oh I was so mad.” SSW rarely waits for PP (or anyone else for that matter) to answer. “But Sam was home and just put some Vaseline on it and that reminded me how my father he was a physician and one time I think it was around the holidays actually I scalded myself something awful I don’t know how, but my father who was a physician, he just put some Vaseline on it and I remember I was little maybe only 7 or 8, and that it was very soothing. So when my husband did the same thing with this,” She points at the wound, shaking her head, disgusted, “well it was very soothing.”

“Yes, those old fashioned remedies are often the best,” PP agrees, trying to think of a way to get her to stop her Vaseline Monologue so she could turn on the hairdryer without being rude.

“….the other day I ran into a friend of mine who knew me before the surgery and he told me that I should have one of those little electric chairs and then I could just zoom around so much more better. And it made me so mad. That he would say that. The doctor who did the surgery, he said that I was healing just fine. That I should just keep doing what I’m doing. That it’d take time. But that Dan, this friend of mine or really he’s not someone that really knows me anymore. Obviously. He just made me so mad….”

PP finally just turns on the hairdryer. She had been actually encouraging the Anti- Jesus Story and as she was doing it, she knew that it was going to digress into something that she didn’t want to encourage and also that she wouldn’t be able to stop SSW cuz once she started in talking, she didn’t stop.

And even as PP begins drying her hair, she can still hear that SSW is talking. She just can’t make out the words anymore.

Does it matter? Does SSW find offense with PP’s Dryer Noise Deterrent?
She doesn’t seem to. The only thing that really seems to set her off is any mention of her differently-abled situation. Whether it was an offer of help or a suggestion of easier transport.

“Shit!”

PP can hear this through the dryer noise and this time she just smiles. Thinks of Mary and the Baby Jesus, and starts to hum Away in the Manger, the image of Mary holding the Lord Our Saviour and the Three Kings of Orient Are vivid in her mind's eye as SSW's muffled drone goes on and on and on.....

Found Suit, Lost Time

2010-12-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

“We’ve ______ you!” Hemophiliac Swimmer, Floyd, beams over at PP, stopped at the wall to adjust her mask.
“What?” She could take her ear plugs out, but then they’ll leak and….
“We MISSED you!”
“Oh, yeah, thanks. I usually swim up at Hilltop, but today….”

It was really too much to go into the explanation of why she was there at the Oakland Y on a Saturday afternoon instead of the more convenient Hilltopia. She’d lost her swimsuit. Horror of horrors. Wrapped up in a towel on Wed. There had been a Disruption of Ritual (DOR) by DL—-she’d had to show PP a lock---it was ‘cornflower blue’. Very pretty, but in the distraction of the pretty blue lock, PP had left her suit wrapped in the towel. Had tossed it into the dirty towel bin and left.

Needless to say, when she arrived home 30 minutes later the nervous breakdown was inevitable and full-blown. To lose a swimsuit is the worst! Esp. at Christmas when a trip to Ross would be from hell.

So on this Sat., she’d come to find the suit. And she had. Or rather a very nice Y Woman had donned rubber gloves, dug through two trashcans of ‘lost’ crap, and voila! there it was at the bottom of the second can.

She didn’t need to tell Floyd all of this obviously. So she just nodded, made an inane comment about how he was still swimming.
“I’m retired. I can come every day.”
“Can’t wait!” she’d joked, then taken off down the lane.

He waited for her, stopped her before turning, admonishing, shaking his finger at her, “It’ll come soon enough. Don’t wish the time away.”
“Oh, sure,” she’d agreed, “of course.”

And as she swam back down the lane, she had to think that he was so right. The time just swam by so fast. Before she knew it, she’d be 80 years old, swimming in her own lane cause of some special swim malady.

As long as she kept swimming, that is!

Hard Headed, Soft Bottomed

2010-12-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

“Oohh, that’s hot!” Dyed Blond Ringlet Woman dips her big toe into the hot tub. PP laughs, nods, agreeing. She’s still sitting on the edge of the tub, unusual for her. Rarely does she not just plunge into the soothing heated water to counter the pool’s cool temp.

Yet this evening, the pool had been perfect. Warm and empty. PP had had the end lane where the stupid families usually frolic. This lane is the warmest since it has tiny heaters lining the wall.

She swims as close as she can to these without running into the wall.

So, when DBRW cries out over the hot tub temp, PP agrees. It is hot and maybe it seems this way since the pool hadn’t been too cold.

Glancing at the temp, DBRW grins, then shakes her curls, “106! No wonder!”
“That is toasty,” PP slips in now, the heat delicious.
“It’s empty. That’s why the temperature is so hot. The more people that are in the tub, the more the temperature goes down.”
PP’s puzzled by this. Wouldn’t it be just the opposite? The more people in the tub, the more they heat it up?
“How’s that?” she asks, curious.
“Our body temperature, it’s 98 point something, and so when lots of people get in their body temperatures bring the total temperature down.”

She glances over at PP. “I don’t think you and me are gonna bring the temperature down just the two of us.” She chuckles as she inches into the water, her round brown belly half way covered by the swirling bubbles.
“I never thought of it that way,” PP nods. “I guess that does make sense.”
But does it? PP is skeptical yet decides not to voice this. It’s too good of a story the way it is.

DL arrives, perches on the edge of the tub, grinning at the already started Aquatopia Dialogue. When DBRW explains her water temp theory to DL, DL just nods. It makes sense to her. But she’s a poet. Everything makes some kind of sense in a metaphorical way, right?

“My daughter, she is good at math!" DBRW starts the topic out of nowhere. Apropos of much of the dialogue at the Oakland Y. "Don’t let no one tell you that girls ain’t good at math. They are. And I tell her, you use your algebra. You go to the store, you see a can of peas for 30% off, and you figure it out using your algebra.”
PP’s not sure that algebra is the exact math used; but then again, math isn’t her forte.

Because she’s a girl?

No, because it’s stupid.

“And when I tell my daughter this, she just stands there, hands on hip and refuses to listen to me. She thinks she knows it all. And the kids. They are smarter than they used to be. I look around and see that how are all these kids being born smarter and smarter?”

“It’s the math?” PP ventures.
She laughs, “Exactly!” Not missing a beat. “And my daughter, because she is so smart and she knows it all, when I tell her the opposite she just shakes her head. Tells me, No, it ain’t so. She’s so Hard Headed that girl is.”
She laughs. They all do.

“And I know that she get it from me. Why when I was growing up, everyone would say, “'Nadine,' that’s me 'you are so hard headed!' But I’m not so hard headed anymore. No. But I am soft bottomed!” She laughs, they all do.

“And I don’t have to do a thing. It just gets softer and softer and softer!”

She grins, shakes her head, sighs deeply, thinking of the softness.

DL and PP crack up, their soft bottoms growing too.

Was Mark Twain A Racist?

2010-11-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

“Not to change the subject, but….” Sandy interrupts PP’s gushing rhapsody of her perfect swim: warm water (82), own lane, (rarity) and no air conditioning until the end of her swim. (Sorry to break that parallel structure, but in reality there was no parallel structure, just free form gushing.)

Sandy had been her usual listening self, nodding and agreeing with appropriate "uh huh’s” but she’d had enough. She needed an answer.

“Let me ask you this, Was Mark Twain a Racist?”
PP can’t change gears fast enough, from swimming euphoria to race relations. So she’s glad DL is there, and after a LONG pause, asks, “What do you think, DL?”

DL has the perfect answer, of course. Something about Twain writing about a certain period of history and thus documenting a certain truth of the times; however, on the other hand, in our time, today some might very well perceive his writings as racist.

She said it more eloquently than this, but you get the gist.
Sandy nods.
“Why do you ask?” PP wants to know. After all it is 9:45 at night in Utopia and everyone’s tired and spaced out from their workouts.
“Well, you know Iris?”
“Yeah, sure,” PP nods.
"Well, she was reading White Oleander....."
”That’s a good book,” PP interrupts wondering how racism fits in to this read. She can’t remember any race relations in it, but her memory is abdominally abysmal.

“Yes, well, it’s okay, but the point is that when I asked her if she’d read Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and she’d said no, and then when I said oh you must read them another woman butted in and said that oh yeah they made her read those books in school and they were racist and so I was just wondering what you thought. After all N_____ Jim was one of the sweetest, kindest most beloved characters of all time. (PP can’t write the N word out, but bear in mind that Sandy said it, no qualms at all even though African American Princess was sitting in the corner wide eyed listening to the entire discussion.)

PP on the one hand admires Sandy’s nonchalant usage in the context of the discussion, yet on the other side, well…in the context of our times and Utopia it seemed a bit brazen or inappropriate or in any case PP was a bit uncomfortable to say the least and so she blathers in something about Jim being the moral center of the novels (Like she remembers! See note above)

Sandy likes this assessment though and agrees. Then goes on to talk about Thanksgiving and going down to her uncle’s and how he sets a table like Martha Stewart with the turkey centerpieces and fancy flower arrangements and matching china etc. and how everyone asks if he’s gay, and she always laughs and says, “Nah, he’s been married for 26 years and is one of the straightest guys I know.”

AAP is nodding this whole time, taking it all in? She never commented upon Twain, so PP doesn’t know if she was offended or not. But after Sandy’s ‘Gay Story’ PP just comments on how those ‘stereotypes’ are everywhere.
"That they are," AAP pipes in.
And they all laugh, nodding and agreeing.
“What time is it?” Sandy asks.
“9:45,” PP says. “I better get going. I’m so slow.”
Chuckling, Sandy rises and gathers up her towel and water spray bottle and saunters out.

PP follows AAP out who turns and grins at her, “We really got goin in there, didn’t we?” she laughs.

And PP agrees, that yes, they did.

But did they answer Sandy's question, she wonders? Hell, wonder what would Martha say?

Shut up, sit down, and eat the goddamn turkey!

Utopia in 3 Parts

2010-11-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

I.
Something to Hold On To

“Oh…what a day!” African Princess sighs, lounges longer on the side of Aquatopia. DL and PP smile and nod. Every day is a long day if you ask PP. “All day I was directing traffic. And all the people. Picking up trash. We’d clear one street, then the trash was covering it…” She sighs deeply. “It was such a mess.”
“You were in the City today for the Giants’ parade?” DL asks.
“That’s right.” She shakes her head. “It was a mess. We didn’t write no tickets today at all. It was a free for all. Everyone got away with murder. People were crazy. There were so many of them. It was insane.”
“I wonder why the Giants winning the World Series is such a big deal,” PP muses aloud the unspeakable.

But there’s careful thought going on in Aquatoipa: “People have nothing else to hold on to,” In the Corner of the Hot Tub Woman nods. Serious.
And all the women nod. Serious. Knowing that it’s true.

II.
Kissing Make You Sick

“You make the ginger, the lemon. You put in a cup of red wine. You drink it and you not sick. No more!” Diabetes Woman nods her dark head, waves her arm dramatically to any and all in the Utopia Sauna.
Does this really work? PP wonders. She’s not gonna try it since she can’t drink red wine.
“You’ll just pass out asleep then,” Sandy laughs.
“No. You try it. If you get the sickness. Then this will stop it. I always take it. When I take care of babies, they always kiss me. They try to kiss me on the mouth.” She demonstrates, puckering her lips, “ but then I turn away, give them my cheek. They kiss me there. Not on mouth. Babies want to kiss on lips. But then you catch their sickness.”

“Now I know why I don’t kiss babies!” PP exclaims. Everyone laughs except DW who just plows on. “It is how babies are. My own babies. They were this way too. Always kiss on the mouth. But no no no. I say, here.” She points to her cheek. “Then you make the red wine one cup with ginger and lemon and you not sick. No more.”

III
Our Person

PP comes back from her shower to hurry into her clothes before getting kicked out of the locker room. DL is in deep conference with Liver Transplant Woman, Sally. They’re head to head, whispering. DL is mostly nodding while Sally is almost crying. PP can tell she’s close. She does cry easily. But this can happen when you’ve had a liver transplant, you’re off your meds, and your grandfather is dying.

Hell, anyone would cry.

But yet, DL holds her own. Says something soft and soothing every few words, placing a gentle hand on Sally’s shoulder. PP marvels at DL’s therapist abilities so late in the day at the end of Utopia. How does she do it? PP wonders.

Later, trudging up the stairs, PP asks DL what it was all about. But DL can’t really articulate it. Too overwhelming. Something about Death of her Person.

Cause we all have Our Person/s. For PP it’s her Gram and her Niece. For DL it was her dad and her aunt. For Sally it is her grandfather.

It has been a long day, PP thinks, as they walk out into the dark breezy night. But thinking about her Persons, now, at this moment, she has something to hold on to.

The Richmond Plunge: 2 Perspectives

2010-11-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

“You do Pilates?”
She eyes PP up and down, focusing in on her belly, then patting her own round soft melon of one, her wet turquoise flowers ballooning out.
“No,” PP laughs.
“Just swimming?”
“Yeah, just swimming,” PP answers.
“Bet she always been small,” Pilates Asking Woman’s Friend snorted.
Laughing, PP nods, “Yeah, that’s true. I’m small.”

And she is, esp. when confronted with the Richmond Plunge Swimming Crowd. No one did Pilates is one way of putting it, making PP and her partner today, CC (who’s really really small!) stand out even more.

The two Pilates Snorting Women give PP one more up and down before heading into the lovely lockerroom. Does PP need to describe how deluxe the Richmond Plunge is now? Maybe a little.

The women’s bathroom’s showers are white pristine tiles with little orange, red and green star fish mosaics in the floor. A sparkling mermaid graces the wall on the way out to the amazingly stupendous pool. A gigantic mural fills the far wall: a scene of a pond with white egrets, a little island and a woman wading into it. It’s all bright greens, and blues, and browns.

The pool itself (PP had to ask the lounging about lifeguards) is 60 meters long!!! And 20 across. The kids are relegated to half, leaving tons of room for lap swimmers.

It’s a swimmer’s dream pool. At least it is for PP. Swimming in her lane, a pasty middle aged guy shares her lane intermittently. Yet the lanes were so wide that PP barely noticed him. Well, she did notice him, but still, the width of the lap lanes easily held two side by side swimmers.

CC, on the other hand, as PP found out later, had a less welcoming experience than PP’s Pilates Curious Women.

Evidently, when CC had gotten in the lane, there’d been a boy swimming in her lane. CC asked if she could share. The kid just nodded and swam away. Then the father jumped in, nearly on top of CC, so she decided to move to the next lane.

Well.

The woman who was hogging the wide lane next to the boy and dad was having none of this ‘sharing a lane.”
“Excuse me,” CC had asked. “Can I share your lane?”
The woman had glared at her, harrumphed, and then pointed to the kid/dad lane, “Why can’t you swim over there?”
Disbelief enveloping her, CC explained, “There’s a kid and his dad swimming over there (duh!) So there’s no room for me.”
No Share Woman shook her head, and repeated her query, “I don’t see why you can’t swim over there.”
“Is that a NO?” CC asked. “I just want to swim my mile.”
NSW grudgingly moved over, allowing CC to share, but it musta been a tense swim. Which was so too bad since this was their first time swimming at the Plunge and CC had wanted to come here for months.

When CC had told PP this story later, PP couldn’t believe it. “They can’t say no!”
“Yeah,” CC nodded. “It’s a public pool. Not some country club. I remember when I swam at 21 Hour Fitness in the City, you’d have to call up ahead of time and reserve your lane; you could only reserve 30 minutes at a time. But the regulars knew how to manipulate the system, get in good with the staff, so they’d reserve their time back to back even though technically this was against the 'rules'.”

PP nodded, told CC of the Hayward Plunge’s Reservation system. Of the Claremont Pool’s One per lane waiting ritual. Of KW getting shut out of 3 lanes at some pool in Marin till a smarmy gold chain guy let her in his lane. Of course.

Where did NSW think she was? The Richmond Plunge was in Richmond for Chrissakes! Not some hoity toity tony city!

Maybe NSW wished she were in Marin, or Claremont, or Monte Carlo. Maybe she thought she was special cuz she had been there first and she was a regular and who was CC horning in on her territory?

Whatever.

PP declared that they needed to revisit the Richmond Plunge. Seek out this Odiously Selfish Lane Woman. Find some kids and get them to jump in her lane. Then get some parents to jump in the lane too.

But before this, make sure that CC had her own lane next to hers. So when OSLW had to escape the family pandemonium, CC could smile sweetly and say, “Why can’t you swim over there?”

That’d show her, eh?

The Cost of Color

2010-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

"Here we are losing jobs and they're paying 4000 dollars a day on orange lights around the rotunda!"

PP glances down at DL lying dazed on the utopia shelf below her. DL’s a Giant’s Fan. Yes, with capital letters.

What’s more important?
Jobs?
Baseball?

PP isn’t gonna venture into this territory. But she will do her usual prompts to keep the ‘ball’ rolling.
”You meant the top of the city capital building?” PP isn’t quite sure what a rotunda is. It’s late; she’s already done her swim, and now Utopia. None of this helps her recall of architectural structures.
“Yes, that’s right,” Sandy nods. “I mean, okay, I have nothing against Lesbians but why do they have to light it up pink?”
Does DL shift slightly? Again, PP isn’t gonna drag her into the dialogue, at least not yet.
“Why pink?” PP asks.
“That’s a good question,” Sandy says.
“It’s because of the Nazis,” DL helps now. “They used pink triangles to identify gays and lesbians during the War.”

“Really?” PP asks, not ever having heard this before. Not that Nazi history is a particular interest of hers. In fact, she hates Nazi stuff. But doesn’t everybody?

Well, no, some people are fascinated by it. Why PP knows of one person who….oh but she transgresses. Back to Utopia.
“Yes, it was a Witch Hunt,” DL says solemnly.
“Oh,” PP pauses, “yes, I knew that.”
“I didn’t realize,” Sandy says.
“Yeah, I never knew that pink symbolized anything other than that pretty girlie girl thing.”
Sandy nods, “Yes, and boys are blue. Starting at birth.” She rises and slowly makes her way out of the sauna. "The things one learns in the sauna" she sighs. “Good night ladies,” and waves at them before opening the door and letting herself out.
“I’m hot,” DL says. “I gotta get outta here.”

PP nods, thinking that she’s gotta get out of here too. All those colors are making her queasy.

Orange for Baseball.
Pink for Lesbians.
Blue for Boys.

Green for solar.
Purple for Barney.
Red for Passion.

Wait, that last one isn’t a thing. It’s an idea.

But then isn’t the pink for Lesbians also an idea?

Of course it is.

And it’s worth much more that $4000 a night…..

Is It Real? (Part II)

2010-10-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

“You need to get out of here NOW!” Sexy Latina Clerk was having none of PP’s usual dilly dallying round getting dressed.

Not like PP was. Dilly dallying that is. With the shrieking HONK HONK HONK of the fire alarm and her (imagined?) smelling of smoke out at the pool, she was going as fast as she could.

But as any swimmer knows, there’s a LOT of stuff involved. The peeling off the suit (No, she didn’t even consider taking a shower –duh), drying off, putting clothes on. Collecting the cap, ear plugs, mask, water bottle, etc.

“Just wrap a towel around you!” SLC hollers over the alarm as she runs up and down the aisles of the locker room, making sure everyone is out.

Yeah, right, like PP is just gonna wrap a towel around herself, soaking wet, and run upstairs and stand naked (under the towel) in the freezing cold night fog of the Hilltopia parking lot.

Fire or no fire, she was gonna at least put her clothes on first.

And she did, skipping most of the drying off, and tossing her junk into her swim bag, wondering (for only a moment) if she’d lost her earplugs.

No one else was in the locker room. The frantic mom and kid had evacuated minutes before. While PP was impressed with her own 3 minute quick change, it was nothing compared to the panicked mom rescuing her child.

And so, out PP goes, up the stairs, into the night where a little crowd of YMCA’ers are hanging around, chatting, bouncing basket balls, shuffling aimlessly.
A couple of the clerks come out with piles of towels, “Does anyone need a towel?” PP stood for a moment, surveying the scene. The crowd was decidedly unpanicked.

It certainly didn’t appear that the facility was burning down. On the other hand, even if it weren’t, how long would it take for them to figure it out? By the time they did, it’d be 9:30 and she’d have no time to swim cause the pool would be closed.

Or even if they did figure it out in time enough for her to swim, she’d still have to wait out here in the freezing cold with wet hair and damp clothes on for who knows how long.

"WHRRRR WHRRRR WHRRRRRR!!!!!”
Two fire engines come roaring into the parking lot, lights flashing, sirens screaming, firemen jumping out.

Shit.

PP wasn’t gonna wait. Sure she was curious if the place was really on fire, but…..

She would surely get a shooting pain earache if she stood out in the cold wind with her wet head much longer.

And so, she stalked off to the Geo, followed by a few other workout quitters.

Maybe some might think a fire was the perfect excuse to get out of working out?

Perhaps. For PP, as any of you can guess, the entire episode was beyond crankiness.

She almost hoped the place did burn down.

Except then she’d never see David Cassidy’s smiling face anymore.
Or Autistic Dad’s friendly wave.
Or Swedish Accent Woman’s spastic backstroke.

Okay, she could live without the last one, but you get the drift.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she heads out Lakeside Dr, and then turns up the hill, just as another fire engine comes roaring down toward the Y.

Maybe it really was on fire?

Nah, she couldn’t believe this. But yet…. The evidence was compelling. The alarm. The smoke. (Well, maybe) The evacuation. The fire engines.

Honestly, she’d never been part of such a real fire alarm production.

It woulda been kinda thrilling if she hadn’t missed her swim.

Maybe it was thrilling anyway?

No. Definitely not, as she got on the wretched dark frwy and headed back home, fighting back the teary disorientation that was starting to take over from an interrupted swim.

Epilogue

“Hilltop YMCA. This is Marina speaking. How can I help you?”
“I’m just calling to make sure the place didn’t burn down last night. Obviously, since you answered, it’s still standing.”
Mariana laughs nervously. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. No, the place didn’t burn down. We’re still here.”
“So what happened? Why did the alarm go off?”
“Some kid pulled it.”

PP shook her head into the phone. Duh. She knew this, but how could she have argued this last night amid all the pandemonium? “That’s what I figured,” she says now.

“Yes, well, we’re gonna send out a survey to see if we can find out who did it.”
PP laughs. Yeah, right, like some kid is gonna confess to his/her parents? Or even if the kid did confess, the parents would report their kid?

What would be the consequences? Would the kid be banned from the YMCA for life? Would the parents have to foot the bill for the Richmond Fire Department’s two responding engines? Would PP get the privilege of drowning the little monster?

It was a stupid idea.
But somehow so YMCA.

“Okay, well, thanks,” PP says now, “I can swim today.”
“Yes, the pool is open. Thanks for calling the Hilltop YMCA."

It is Real?

2010-10-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

~Part I~

It was a swimmer’s dream. The pool was absolutely empty with the exception of one quiet (very unusual) family floating about in the rec lanes.

No one was swimming laps. The water was smooth and inviting. PP couldn’t believe her good luck. This never happens, well almost never.

David Cassidy Lifeguard gave her his hearty excited wave as he invited her to partake of the empty pool. PP felt almost giddy. Friday night after a long week; the pool was going to be perfect.

She slipped into the silky smoothness and began her gliding stroke.
Heaven!

Until…..

Her mask started to leak! Damn! So cranky! And she’d just bought it. Brand new and it leaked? Yet, she could manage this. Stopping at the wall every few laps and dumping the excess water out. It was a pain, but still, the pool was all hers and this is what really mattered!

"HOOOONNNKKKK HOOOOONKKKK HOOOOONKKKK HOOONNNNK!!!!"

The noise was deafening.
What the hell was going on?
She stopped mid lap and looked over at David. He was in a flurry of activity. Trying to get the family out of the pool.
Why?
"HOOOONKK HOOONKKK HOONKKK HOOONKKK…!!!!"

“YOU HAVE TO GET OUT!” he hollered over the noise.
“What?” PP continued to stand, mid lane. Did he really say she had to get out? Without finishing her swim? Why she’d only been in 10 minutes. Only done maybe three or four hundred yards.

She couldn’t get out.
“YOU NEED TO GET OUT NOW!!!”
“Why?”
“It’s the fire alarm."
“You’re kidding?”
He shook his head as PP swam over to the edge and clambered out, wet, cold, mad and puzzled.
The fire alarm? He was making her stop swimming over a stupid fire alarm?
Since when does anyone pay attention to a fire alarm?

PP has been teaching for so many years, and sure every quarter or so, the alarm will go off.

Does anyone pay attention, let alone evacuate the premises?

Nah.
She remembers recently reading in her office when an alarm went off. It was obnoxiously persistent, so she wandered out into the hallway. No one was around. She moseyed over to the librarian to ask, “What’s that noise?”
“Sounds like a fire alarm,” he told her.
“That’s what I thought…..” She paused. “Shouldn’t we see if there’s a fire?”
He laughed. “I don’t think there’s a fire, but if it would make you feel better I’ll go check it out.”
And he did, PP following behind him down the long hall, down the stairs, till the culprit noise was located behind a locked door.
“Yup, here it is. I’ll get someone to unlock the door and turn it off.”
“So it just went off because….”? she ventured.
He laughed. “They go off sometimes. Don’t know why. But nothing to worry about.”

And so, this night at Hilltopia when the alarm went off, PP was just gonna ignore it. But David Cassidy wouldn’t have it. She had to get out of the pool.

DAMN!!!!
What the hell was she gonna do? Was she supposed to evacuate into the dark cold Richmond night till the fire dept arrived?
“Where do I go?” she asked David.
He ran to ask his boss, who must have communicated the obvious fact that the building needed to be completely evacuated.
“Grab your stuff and get outside,” David hollered at her over the deafening noise.
"Do you think there's really a fire?" she asked.
"I hope not," he said, before running back to take care of some important evacuation procedure.

PP shook her head, was this really happening? In all of her many many many years of lap swimming, she’d never been booted from the pool because of a fire alarm.

Yet…..Was that smoke that she smelled?

Shivering, PP hurried into the locker room, shaking her head, but also just a little worried that it might all be real…..

~To be continued~

Pool Renovation?

2010-10-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

“What’s up with the cold air blowing on the far end of the pool?” PP asks the New Cutie Lifeguard after her freezing swim at the Oakland Y.
“Yeah, some other people have complained about that. It’s part of the renovation….”
“It’s part of the Renovation to freeze all the swimmers out of the pool?”
He laughs. “Yeah, it is cold. I was teaching a swim lesson the other day and I definitely felt it.”
“So, are they gonna fix it?”
He shakes his head. “I think they’re working on it.”
PP likes this answer. It works for almost everything doesn’t it? She can’t think what right now. But she’s working on it.

“What is the purpose of this Renovation”? she asks instead of commenting on the working time frame.
“It’s supposed to get rid of the mold on the ceiling.” He grins.
PP laughs. “You’re kidding?”
“I know. They think that if they blow air on the ceiling that it will help.”

“That seems like such a good idea,” PP jokes as Swim in her Shoes woman, who’d been sharing her lane, approaches. “Did you hear what he said about the cold air blowing on us?” PP asks S in HSW.
“No, what did he say?”
“He said it was to get rid of the mold on the ceiling.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Why the hell don’t they just clean it off and then give it a fresh coat of paint?”

Why not indeed?

Later PP tells DL about the Arctic Air blowing on the pool and she just shakes her head and says, “Typical Oakland.”

The next day, PP gets a message in her email alerting her to an EMERGENCY POOL CLOSURE. Oh, how surprising. Something to do with mechanical failure and flooding that caused them to close the pool indefinitely.

Was the Giant Arctic Air Blowing Renovation part of the mechanical malfunction? she wonders.

PP has no idea.

But she's sure they're working on it....

3 Tales from the Bijou Pool at Tahoe

2010-09-29T18:37:00.000-07:00

I: Priorities

PP’s so excited to be back in South Lake Tahoe and headed for the Bijou Pool. Swimming under the pines. Under the bright moon. In her own lane....

Until…..She gets there and whoa!

It’s crowded!

What the hell is up with that? When she’d swam here before it'd been calm and empty. Tonight there’re at least two swimmers in each lap lane and a full group of ‘water aerobics’ women taking up the rest of the pool.

Plus it was freezing!

Of course this is to be expected. After all, she was in the high sierras. But still……how could there be so many swimmers in such cold conditions?

The Tahoe swimmers must be a hardy bunch.

She dives in, sharing a lane with two other women, then one gets out and she’s just splitting a lane with Tattoo Bikini Jockette. She’s not such a great swimmer, kinda crooked and splashy, but hell she looks good and isn’t that at least some of what swimming is about?

Afterwards in the locker room, still freezing after her hot shower (and yes, thankfully it was hot), PP watches as one of the Water Aerobic Women attempts to detangle her hair. “Oh, bother!” she exclaims, chuckling.

“Yeah,” PP grins, “that’s the hard part for me. The tangles.”
“Yes, well…” She sighs, continuing to tug at her wet tresses. “For awhile I colored the grey, but then I decided not to bother.”

PP had been admiring the color. The grays and whites and blacks all streaked together. “It’s wonderful as it is!”

WAW smiles, slowly, then shakes her head, “Well, I decided that really it was more important for me to worry about losing weight before I worried about the color of my hair.”

They both laugh, even though PP always feels a bit self-conscious 'round dieting women, being slim herself. Yet it did seem that the priorities were something WAW had thought about. “I’ve already lost 37 pounds!” she exclaims, beaming.
“That’s great!” PP says. “The water exercise helps, I bet!”
“Oh yes, it does. Though I need to come more often. I try to make it 3 times a week but…..”
“It’s cold!” PP offers.
She frowns. Then shrugs. “Yes, I suppose. Though that’s not what stops me. I just seem to have a hard time getting here is all.”
“I get that!” PP laughs. “Especially if you’re coloring your hair.”
“Remember! I was gonna hold off on that!” she grins, collecting her stuff off the bench and packing it up.
“Have a nice evening,” she calls back to PP as she exits the room.
“Thanks, you too,” PP says, as she heads to the mirror and begins the arduous process of her own detanglement.

II. Sharing

Night two at the Bijou Pool. This night is not as crowded. DHBF has dropped PP off for her swim so he can go to the store for dinner supplies (See why she keeps him around? Chauffeur, Shopper and Chef all wrapped into one handsome package!)

But again, it’s COLD! So PP has to snag a lane lickety-split before she loses her nerve (Actually the water itself is fine, she guesses 'bout 82 degrees, but the air? It’s heading for that low of 34 that’ll it’ll reach later)

One person swims in each of the three lanes. A flopping on his back elderly gent. A speedy bikini woman (What is it with the Tahoe bikinis? PP knows that these racing suits are made but it’s been awhile since she’s seen them—no one at the YMCA dons such attire), and finally, a bald headed guy. (Isn’t his head cold, she wonders)

PP chooses the bikini woman (naturally). “Excuse me, can I share the lane with you?”
BW stares up at PP through her foggy goggles, nods and then smiles. “You can have the lane.” She dives under the lane line to join Bald Swimmer. “We’re together.”

“Really?” PP is astounded. No one ever deserts her lane at the YMCA. Everyone clings to the lane if she’s lucky enough to have scored one to herself. Then don’t look at the person wanting to get in and share. Don’t wait at the wall and ask if they want to join. Let alone offer to hand over the lane.

So, PP is completely happily surprised by such gracious generosity. Is it something to do with the Alpine Air?

Maybe, as she hops into the lane and zooms down it gleefully by herself.
Or maybe it just has to do with the fact that the two of them really are ‘together’.

III By Myself

She’s only about 6? Maybe 7? Tadpoling down the center of the lane on the last night that PP is in Tahoe. Her bright red flowered suit reminiscent of a tropical fish.

Okay, PP thinks. A kid. But this kid seems serious. She’s really swimming laps.

There’s a bunch of kids in the other half of the pool tonight instead of the Water Aerobic Women. But none of them are swimming laps. They’re all just doing the usual kid stuff: screaming, splashing, fighting.

But Red Suit Girl will have none of this. When she stops at the wall, PP asks if she can share her lane. She nods, smiles shyly and then takes off back down the lane doing a mighty underwater breaststroke.

As PP swims, she notices that the kid keeps on going, rarely stopping. But at one point they are both at the wall turning, so PP praises her, “You’re a really good swimmer!”
She beams.
“Are you on a swim team?”
“No.”
“Me neither,” PP says. “Do you like to swim alone?”
“Yeah,” she nods, her eyes sparkling.
“Me too,” PP grins.

And she watches Swim Alone Kid take off again, reminding PP of herself at that age, swimming back and forth and back and forth for what seemed like hours in the wonderful backyard pool of Hacienda Heights, reveling in the solitary freedom of it.

Which is part of what swimming is all about. Where else can you be immersed in the floating deliciousness of the water, surrounded by only its embrace, even if you're sharing with a fellow lap swimmer or a like-minded kid, and still feel completely and blissfully alone?

Nowhere.

PP grins to herself as she plunges after Swim Alone Kid, enjoying the company, the moon, and herself in the beautiful Pool Bijou....

Channeling Esther

2010-09-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

“That’s a BEAUTIFUL breaststroke you have there!”

PP continues her Esther Williams backstroke. She’s been practicing this elegant pretence since seeing Esther in Neptune’s Daughter. Esther swims gracefully, effortlessly around in coy circles as Ricardo Montabahn proclaims his undying love for her. Of course, Esther is safe in her little pool. Until Ricardo threatens to dive in after her……

Don’t worry, PP is not going to give away the entire scene!

But the reality is that PP’s backstroke is a pale imitation of Esther’s. It’s never been her forte. The only way she can do it at all, besides channeling Esther, is by donning her big fins to help keep her afloat.

“HELLO!!!!” Breaststroke Mistake Woman hollers more loudly at PP. “I said, ‘You have a BEAUTIFUL breaststroke!’”

PP stops at the wall and grins over at the pale eager moon face, eyes shining, nodding in rapt admiration.

PP wonders….should she tell BMW that she’s actually swimming the backstroke?

Nah, PP just nods, smiles sweetly, “Thanks,” and, then dives under the water for her favorite stroke: The Breaststroke.

Gram Swims Backwards!

2010-09-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

“Soon, you’ll be swimming, Gram!” PP jokes as she stares down at her Gram, so small and frail in her pile of pillows after her harrowing 'episode' in the hospital last week. Now she’s home, resting at Uncle Joe’s as PP, DHBF and Ruthie (PP’s mom) visit.

Gram laughs, her bright blue eyes twinkling behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “Oh, no!” she giggles, “I don’t swim.”
“Yes you do,” PP asserts. “Don’t you remember?”
Gram shakes her head. The ‘episode’ of the last week has taken a toll on her. Not just her memory, though this is what seems to bother her the most,but her entire self, body and soul has shrunk dramatically.

Of course, this is to be expected. Still PP can’t help but be so very sad that her Gram may be …….

But tonight, Gram is in fine form. Why, PP’s jokes were welcome and definitely encouraged.

“I don’t remember ever swimming!” Gram exclaims.
“Well, you did,” PP grins. “Remember our pool in Hacienda Heights?”
Gram nods, “Yes, I do.”
“Well, I remember one afternoon, you came in the water with me and Paula and Laura (PP's sisters) and we were all laughing so hard because you were swimming backwards!”
“I was?” Gram shakes her head, smiling.
“Yup. It was really funny. We were all in the water and urging you to swim towards us, but whenever you took a stroke for some reason you went backwards instead of forwards!”
Gram laughs, “That’s just what I’m doing now!”

They all laugh. It’s true. Gram’s ‘backwards memory’ of the past is crystal clear. She remembers the color and pattern of the dress she wore (green with black dots) and who was there (her brothers Wilfred and Wycliffe and their wives and children all of whom she can list off--- on the other hand, PP can’t remember them at all!); where they were (at the ranch in Oak Glen) and the time of day (it was late afternoon, round 4 p.m. before mom got supper ready….)All of this taking place over 50 or 60 years ago.

PP marvels at this memory of the past. Esp. since her memory is so awful. She can barely remember what she had for breakfast that morning even though it was only 3 hours ago and even though she always eats the same thing!

But the swimming backwards memory seems to be PP’s alone. Gram has no recollection of it, though she does believe it.
“Well, if you say that I swam backwards, then I swam backwards!” she laughs, shaking her head and staring up at PP from her throne of soft pillows. Her look is long and loving. PP stares back, trying not to cry.

The memory of swimming backwards does help with tear prevention.

If only PP could use this strategy for all of her tearful inclinations!

“Did I tell you about the time that your Aunt Nancy saved your cousin Leora from drowning?” Gram begins, launching into another story.
“No, I’ve never heard that one!” PP encourages, taking Gram’s frail hand into her own.
Gram grips her hand tightly as she begins, “Leora was just a little girl. Oh! She must have been only 7 or 8 years old and your Aunt Nancy, you know how she was such a good swimmer, she saw that Leora was in trouble and so she raced out to the middle of the lake and…..”

Tears start to well up in PP’s eyes, but she wipes them away.

This is no time for weeping!

After all, Gram has a story! Leora is going to be saved by Aunt Nancy!

And Gram's story will certainly save PP....

Expansion

2010-09-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Ugly Stick had bonked the hot tub at the Berkeley Y big time!

PP keeps swimming in the freezing B Y pool. She hates this pool. It’s always cold! But it was the only choice since the stupid Oakland Y closed their pool and in fact the entire facility for the week—so DL and PP had ventured into the land known as Bezerkely.

Now, trying to keep her muscles from completely freezing up on her, PP keeps an eye on the hot tub. Yet…..like she said, the Ugly Stick had been working overtime. At least a dozen Ugly Stick Men were lounging about in the tub, their scraggly beards wet and stringy, their paunchy stomachs hairy and wet, their….

Okay you get the idea.

PP doesn’t want to make you sick.
(What is it about Berkeley and the Ugly Stick? Later in Utopia, PP mentions this to DL and she just nods and pronounces: “It’s the Smug Lack of Hygiene Aspect.”)

Yup. PP doesn’t want to take a hot tub with this Aspect, yet no one seems to be leaving and she’s getting colder and colder and colder till, finally she has to get out of the pool and venture over to the tub.

Is there room for her?

She’s super cold and afraid. Wishes that DL were with her, but knows that DL had had enough of the Berkeley Male Aspect. Earlier they’d ventured up to the Free Weights room, had stood at the door, staring in at the torture machines, unsure if this was the right spot. A Berkeley Groovy Guy with snow white hair and too tall legs in too short shorts sneaks up behind them. “You can go in!” he exclaims. “We can?” PP asks. Like they need his permission? “Absolutely!” he cries and then opens the door for them. DL gives PP a look like she’s gonna explode.

PP remembers this look from the first time she met DL at Polar Bear ice cream on 4th of July when the line was out the door and all the idiot tourists couldn’t make up their minds if they wanted a ‘sugar cone or a natural cone.’

So, tonight, with this look, DL and PP go into the Free Weight room, Too Tall Absolutely Man heads in ahead of them, ignoring them now. “What a sexist!” DL hisses. PP laughs, but knows that it’s serious really. Berkeley. So politically correct?

“He’s a Fem Perv” DL asserts later in Utopia.

What an apt description. Only a Poet Feminist would come up with this.

Anyway, back to the hot tub full of many Fem Pervs no doubt, PP climbs in, squeezing between a withered African American Hot Tub Elder and a pasty goat teed pasty blob.
UGH!

“The gang is all here, my man!” AAHTE calls out to no one in particular. PP smiles in spite of her discomfort. Glad that she wasn’t really a part of this gang on a regular basis. One night was enough as she watches an emaciated Santa Claus pontificate as only Bekeleites can do about the lack of education in ……blah blah blah….

PP really misses Aquatopia in Oakland with the hilarious naked ladies that are familiar territory. It’s hard to be in a new place.

And so it is that they don’t know anyone and no one really talks to them till they’re getting dressed at the end of the night, PP trying to gather all of her crap up out of her locker, off the floor, out of the towel, DL lying comatose on the bench when a Pleasant Pasty Woman lumbers into their aisle.

Hurriedly PP tries to move all of her shit. “Sorry, I don’t need to be takin' up the entire bench,” she apologizes.
“That’s ok,” PPW nods, watching as PP piles her Swim a Mile bag to the brim.
“Your stuff does not all fit in your bag,” PPW observes.
“Yeah, why is that?” PP laughs. “It expands. Must be the wet swimsuit.”
She nods, understanding. “And your fins. They don’t fit in your bag?”
“Nah, I have to carry them. The expansion is too much.”

She laughs.
“And the expanded weight is so hard for me to carry,” PP grins, “esp. since I’ve gotten smaller!”
They all laugh, even DL who’s woken up from her coma.

Later, walking to the car, DL comments on PP’s ‘joke’ and how before this exchange they hadn’t talked to anyone. “But I guess we don’t know anyone here at Berkeley,” she muses.

“We know Laughing at Expansion Woman!” PP exclaims.
DL laughs.
”And Fem Perv Man!”

DL wrinkles her nose, “Where’d you park?”
Laughing, PP points to the Geo down the block as they head toward DL’s car.

Outlaw Lifeguard Take II!

2010-08-27T12:57:00.001-07:00

The Outlaw Lifeguard has a broken nose! What does it mean?

PP asks DL her opinion of course, and DL comes up with the perfect answer: he got in a fight.
And with whom?
Tatiana naturally. She found out that he’d been letting lap swimmers use the water walker lane behind her back and ‘wham’ –he’d got his comeuppance!

PP can just imagine:

Miffed and angry, Tatiana confronts Outlaw Lifeguard: “I know what you’ve been doing behind my back.”
“What?" OL grins, sheepish, slightly belligerent.
“I think you know.”
“No, really, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not playing games. I honestly don’t know what you’re referring to.”
She eyes him, exasperated, “It has to do with the water walking lane.”
He tries to withhold a smirk. “The water walking lane? What about it?”
She sighs deeply, trying to keep her cool, but it’s hard. He’s such a smart ass. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“I wish you would,” he taunts.

She tries to keep from screaming, “You’ve been letting the lap swimmers SWIM in the Water Walking Lane when the rules expressly prohibit it! I told you! No swimmers in the Water Walkers Lane. Is that so hard to understand? All I’m trying to do here is follow the rules and you go behind my back! You allow certain swimmers to use the lane that is ONLY for the water walkers.”

“Certain swimmers?” He grins, “I have no idea who you mean.”
“You know exactly who I mean. I told her too that she couldn’t swim there and then I leave!..... but before I go.....I...." Tatiana pauses, trying to control herself, but it's all too much. "...I look out the window from upstairs and there SHE is, swimming in the water walkers lane! It’s against the RULES! I told her that! And I told you that!”
He shakes his head, chuckles softly, “Hell, I don’t get why she can’t swim there. It’s just an empty lane to me.”
“JUST AN EMPTY LANE!!!!” she cries.

BAM!

Tatiana lets him have it. OL reels from her blow, clutching at his face, “Oww….” as his nose starts to bleed. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Believe it, Buster! I’d take care of that now, if I was you,” she says, turning away, shaken, but pleased.

He grins. Slowly. She’s a feisty one, he thinks to himself. I like that.

Then wiping the blood on his sleeve, he smiles to himself, before heading into the locker room to clean up.

Will he obey T’s punch? Or will he continue to follow his outlaw tendencies?

Stay tuned for more developments.

Same swim time.
Same swim channel
Same Feisty Russian.
Same Smart Ass Outlaw?

Like a Mermaid….

2010-08-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

It was unexpected Bliss. For 20 minutes and then…..

PP had fully braced herself for total mayhem at Hilltopia. Tuesday nights seemed to draw flailing families like moths to a burning building.

But yet, when she arrived. Miracle of miracles! An open lane!

Would wonders never cease?

Delighted, she plunged in, washing away the 111 degree heat from her day in Unpleasant Hell.

Yet, it was not to last. 3 lanes were designated for lap swimmers when she arrived, then two. Then one was taken away by the Big Boss, noting the piling up of families squashed together in ¼ of the pool did indeed present some sort of hazard--like maybe no one could tell if a small child were being trampled on till it was too late?

So she shared a lane now. With Bulky Swimmer Chick. Who knew what she was about. It was fine. Until turning at the wall, PP spied a slow moving Asian woman swimming directly toward her from the opposite end of the pool. No clue about communicating she was joining the lane; therefore, the concept of circle swimming?

Forget it.

PP glanced over at the lane next to her. For a few minutes it’d been a father and his son, not swimming laps in the lap swimming lane.

What the hell was up with that?

PP decided that such use of a lap lane in the crowded mayhem was unacceptable. Hailing the Bored Blondie Lifeguard, PP asked if she could swim in the father/son lane. BBL explained something to PP. PP couldn't understand cuz of her earplugs. But got the idea that it was okay for her to swim with the father/son. They’ll split the lane with her.

Diving under the lane line, PP wondered why this kid/father were being allowed to do what they’re doin in the lap lane instead of the mayhem pandemonium of the family swim side. Did the kid hate the noise? Did he have fear of crowds?

Both of these PP understood, but at the same time she thought, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get outta the frying pan!" In other words, if the kid couldn’t handle the pandemonium, then why was he here at all? Why was he getting special treatment?

Yet as PP passed them, she noticed that something was off. The kid was larger, puffy, flopping. The 'wrongness' was subtle, but still there was something up.

Yet, being the privileged lap swimmer that she was, PP just didn’t get why they were being allowed in the lap lane.

Until stopping at the wall, the father grinned over at her, inviting questioning.
“Is your son afraid of the noise?” PP asked.
He smiled bigger. Shook his head. Muttered something in Spanish.

Shit. Here is yet another instance where PP really wishes she knew Spanish. It’s so stupid to grow up in California and not even know enough Spanish to have a conversation about swimming.

Which is all she’d want to use the language for to be honest.

The father stared at PP, smiling still, then used a practiced phrase of English that he must have to say all the time, “My son, he is Autistic.”

Oh…duh! PP felt so goddamn stupid now. Why the hell didn’t this occur to her? And autistic kids, while she knew little about the condition, were most certainly unable to deal with the general mayhem of all the flailing families in the other half of the pool.

“Today…” the father continued, “it is so hot.”

PP nodded, “Oh, yeah, it was! And I’m sure your son wanted to swim to cool off, right?”
Too much language for the father, but he got the idea. PP had communicated that she was okay with the kid sharing the lane now.

So all was well and PP finished the last of her swim while the father guided Autistic Son along the second half of the lane.

Now PP could see that the kid was acting 'autistic'? His tongue hung out, sometimes licking the water. The father had to pull him up abruptly to discourage this probably involuntarily behavior. The kid had no clue that he was to stay on one side of the lane so PP could swim on the other half. The father had to constantly pull him out of her way. Usually in time, but she did have to stop a few times to avoid a collision.

Of course, normally, this woulda pissed her off. To stop. But hell, the kid was autistic, the day had been hot and besides PP was expecting mayhem anyway.

She still got a swim in. Which is all that mattered.

As she got ready to get out, the father had handed over the son to mom. She was in the lane now, pulling the kid along while the father sat on the deck grinning at PP.
Quick Spanish between the two. “He want to know,” the mother translated, “You swim one hour?”
Laughing, PP shook her head, “Nah, 45 minutes.”
Translating again. “And he want to know, you swim every day?”
“No…no…just 3 or 4 times a week.”
PP heard ‘Tres, Quattro…” and got this. She had learned how to count to 10 in Spanish in Jr. High.
“Yes, Tres, Quattro” PP repeated, grinning at her stupid Spanish abilities.
More back and forth between the two and then the mother beamed over at PP, “He say, you swim like a Mermaid!”

The father nodded, eyeing PP appreciatively.
“Thanks,” PP grinned, genuinely flattered even though she's heard this before. It’s not a new bit of praise. But it delighted her even more tonight. Because of the language? Because of the Autism? Because of the heat?

She just wished, afterward, that she’d found out the word for “Mermaid” in Spanish.

It’d be a nice addition to her ability to count from 1 to 10, don’t you agree?

Outlaw Lifeguard

2010-08-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

“Can I swim in That Lane?” PP nods toward the empty (and previously forbidden to lap swimmers—see last blog entry) water walkers lane, grinning expectantly. Stringy Grey Haired Spaz Man had just jumped into her lane and she was drowning.

Tatiana smiles, shakes her head emphatically. “Oh, no, no, NO,” she repeats three times. “I can’t let you do that.”

PP knows she knows that PP knows that no lap swimmers are allowed in the Water Walkers Lane. But PP was gonna give it a go anyway.

“But I got to last week!” PP cries, as SGHSM turns at the wall and sprays her mightily.
Tatiana continues to shake her head, “Maybe if you guys were circle swimming, I’d be okay with it, but nah, not now.”
PP shrugs. So, the rule was only in place unless there was circle swimming? This was the point of subversion? PP decides not to pursue it though. She actually likes T. She’s cute and smart and pays attention. Something that most of the lifeguards here at the Oakland YMCA don’t do.

Except for the Cute and Smarter New Lifeguard that let PP swim in the WWL last week. He’s watching the whole scene unfold with Tatiana; PP feels this. Should she call him into the fray?

Nah, it’s not worth it. If Tatiana wants to stick to the ‘rules’ then so be it. It all makes for a funny story anyway.

So resigned, PP tries to swim. But now Splasher Flipper Man gets in on her other side and all of a sudden she’s experiencing every swimmer’s nightmare—Splash Sandwich. Damn! And with that Empty Lane beckoning her.

Yet PP presses on. What can she do? Though it seems so very very very stupid stupid stupid. There’s an empty lane. No water walkers in sight. (And if one did happen into the lane, of course PP would move).

But yet, tonight, unlike last week, PP can’t swim there because of the Tatiana and the “Rules.”

Turning at the wall, PP catches out of the corner of her eye, Tatiana now dressed in street clothes. Black trousers, black shirt—she’s off!

And as soon as she’s gone…..

Cute and Smarter Lifeguard heads over to PP’s lane, catches her at the wall, squats down and grins, “You can swim over there now.”
“Really?” PP is beyond delight. Not only does she get to swim in the Water Walking Lane, but she’s part of a subversive lifeguard/swimmer cohort.
“But she said I couldn’t. That it’d be breaking the rules.”
He shakes his head, grins broadly. “Yeah.”
“Do you know why it’s a rule anyway?”
“Nah,” he pauses, considering. “To me it’s just an empty lane. You’d hafta ask my boss.”

“And now she’s gone!” PP grins.
“Yeah,” he laughs, rising. “Besides,” he nods toward SGHM, “he’s a little erratic.”

A little erratic? Well that’s one way of putting it! Not only is this lifeguard an Outlaw, ignoring the rules by undermining his boss’s authority first chance he gets, but he also has a good vocabulary!

Delighted with it all, PP dives into the forbidden lane. Swims happily in the smooth water, relishing her freedom from the Splash Sandwich even though in the back of her mind she’s worried. What if Tatiana comes back and finds her breaking the rules? Would she turn in Outlaw Lifeguard? Blame him for her blatant disregard for Tatiana's authority and the Y's 'rules'?

Of course not.

PP would just shrug. Tell Tatiana that it was all her idea. That she was just testing the waters.

Oh, the thrill of it all.

Breaking the rules at the Y never felt so invigorating. PP hasn't done this in awhile. Such wildness! Such abandon! Such daring!

But hey, all you out there who know Tatiana. You better not tell or else...

PP is gonna sick the Outlaw Lifeguard on you!

3 stories in 1!

2010-08-12T17:45:00.001-07:00

I.

Claremont Days

“We may be able to swim in the eye of the storm.”

PP grins, delighted as always, by her best friend from Jr. High (Can you believe it? Jr. High?!). JB, or Banana,who has a knack for what? Trying to make the best out of a conceivably bad swimming situation?

It’s Claremont Days at her pool. This happens just one day a year here in San Diego and of course this is the day that PP and DHBF are visiting. PP doesn’t really believe that it will be the mayhem that Banana is foreseeing. Every time she’s gone to this ‘Claremont Pool’ in the past it’s been nothing but lovely, warm and EMPTY! (Every swimmer’s dream!)

Yet today, according to B, the festivities at Claremont Day may take over the pool. “Though maybe no one will be swimming laps,” B muses.

So they head up the hill in B’s racy little Audi and PP can’t believe what she sees in the field surrounding the pool. Actually she’s never even noticed a field before—but today, it’s packed with merry-go-round, spinning barfing ride, frog will toss you ride, cotton candy booth, and…

But the pool?

B was right. No one was swimming laps. So the eye of the storm was a calm and peaceful swim. The water warm. The sky blue. The fears unfounded.

And so they all swim. B and PP and DHBF, but finish at different times-- B swimming the longest –3000 yards! ‘She’s a real athlete” DHBF observes.
Uh, yeah, PP thinks to herself, wondering where her own athleticism has vanished to.

So when PP and B meet in the locker-room, happy with their eye of the storm swims, they dress and then head out to find DHBF.

He’s nowhere to be found. Not at the car. Not on the pool deck. Not in front of the building.

“I bet he’s at the fair,” PP smiles.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” B agrees, leading the way to the scary circus like situation.

PP follows with considerable trepidation. She loathes crowds. Her crowdaphobia worsens with each passing year.

But at Claremont Days, there’s a Draw. And DHBF has already found it.

Dancing Girls!
They’re on the portable stage. First tap dancers in hot pink hot pants. Then Bollywood in silks and slippers. Then more tap dancers in turquoise bellbottoms.

It’s hilarious, charming and completely unexpected.

Relief spreading over her, PP’s so glad that they were able to swim in the eye of the storm and then brave the storm of the storm to watch the Dancing Girls.

Who knew that swimming at Claremont Days could be such an entertaining venture?

PP’s pretty sure that Banana knew this.

But just didn’t let on…..

II.

Swimming in the Fast Lane

“You can swim in the Water Walking Lane till a Water Walker comes,” the New Blond Lifeguard at the Oakland Y tells PP when she arrives out on the deck, perplexed and spaced out for her Wed night swim.

WHAT!!!!???? she screams to herself. She can swim laps in the water walking lane? Since when? Has there been a change in policy?

PP can recall many a time when intense altercations occurred from some lap swimmer trespassing into the Water Walkers domain. Stringy Haired Splash Man yelling at two lifeguards, trying to convince them that “There is no Walker here! Why can I no swim here? It is ridiculous.”

But to no avail. He was booted out and banned from the pool and….

Okay, maybe not banned, but he wasn’t allowed to swim laps in the water walking lane.

So tonight, when PP is actually TOLD that she CAN swim in the forbidden lane, she shivers a little in bewildered anticipation. Should she really swim there? But yet....the lifeguard said she could and so…..

WHAT the hell ever. She does! And in she plunges, thrilled at her own lane (no one else can share; there’s a ladder for the walkers blocking the other half)

As she swims, PP revels in her good fortune. But also, isn't the forbidden always more exciting? PP feels all the other swimmers' eyes on her. What is she doing swimming in the water walkers lane? Doesn’t she know that it’s not allowed? She can hear the Group Think.

But yet, nothing happens to her. No admonishments from the lifeguards. No sudden dunking by Stringy Grey Hair Splasher when he sees her.

It’s a fantasy come true!

Plus no water walkers ever appear. PP swims and swims and swims without sharing a lane or circle swimming like everyone else.

She wants to avoid feeling smug, but yet…she does!

After, she wonders, Was it only a one time fluke? Will the same lifeguard be there next Wed and let her swim in the WWL?

Or was it all just a dream?

III.

Stick Legs

DL and PP collapse in Utopia after their respective workouts. PP still on swimmer’s cloud 9 from her privileged water walker swim.

The Africa Women are in heavy gossip mode. Diabetes Woman and her brood. They’re jabbering away, but DW always friendly, wants to include DL and PP.

“You swim?” she asks PP.
“Oh, yes….” PP grins. “Did you?”
”Me?” DW shakes her head. “No. I do machines one hour five day a week. I lose lot of weight! See?”

She pulls at the rolling folds of lose skin round her mid- section. Where’s the weight loss, PP wonders.
“79 pounds!” she exclaims, then lifts a leg up to survey. “But see?” she points at her calf, lean and thin, “Stick Leg. Africa Women. We not like Stick Leg. We like big Butts and….”

Her cohorts burst into loud giggles, slapping their non stick legs and bending over their wide bellies in utter hilarity.

DL laughs too. She’s a good audience for all of the entertainment at Utopia. PP, on the other hand, always has to make some sort of banal comment to keep the conversation rolling.
“Your legs are like that cuz that’s your body shape,” she offers. “Do you know what I mean?”
DW eyes her for a moment, considering. Then nods. “Sure, sure. The Stick Legs, they are my Body. But my butt….”
And again more giggles till DW shrugs as the lights are turned out. “Time to go, I guess,” PP observes.
DW shakes her head, “No. Time to go in Steam Room.”

And PP and DL grin as they watch the stick legs walk out of Utopia and into Steamtopia.

Epilogue

Stick legs--are they the theme? Or is it just legs in general?

Dancers' legs.
Swimmers' legs.
Africa legs.

PP is stuck on the word 'legs'---it looks really funny written out so many times. Just four little letters, but why so funny?

PP thinks it's time to go to lunch. So much leg profundity is making her hungry!

Tears in Utopia

2010-08-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

“Hey, you have children?” Hot Tub Mama glances up at the Serene Spacey Woman sitting on the bench above her. Do they know each other? PP wonders. The question seems to come out of the blue, but after all it is HTM, the Queen of non sequiturs.

“One son,” SSW answers, eyes half closed, in deep Utopian rapture.

“How many children?” HTM repeats, demanding. Didn’t she hear SSW’s answer?

SSW opens her eyes. Stares down at HTM calmly, “One SON!” she repeats, a little louder, a little less patience.
“No daughters?” HTM’s heard the one son answer now. But it wasn’t what she was hoping for?
“ONE SON!” This time SSW shakes her head, then grins. “How about you? How many children do you have?”
“5!” HTM exclaims. “2 son. 3 daughter.”
“That’s a lot of children,” SSW observes.
“That’s a lot of problem!” HTM grunts.

All the women in Utopia chuckle. They share in HTM’s attitude.
“You?” HTM turns to PP who’s been sitting next to her, watching the show.
“Me?”
“How many children?”
PP laughs, “Zero.”
HTM raises her shaved eyebrows. “No children?”
“Nope.”
“Why not you have children?”
“I don’t like them. Or…..” PP reconsiders this response. “It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I don’t think I could raise them.... be responsible. It’s too much for me. And so, I unlike you, I have NO problems." PP giggles.

HTM doesn't, thinking. “My children. They need me. They use me….” Her voice trails off, quiet.

Sensing something is brewing, PP tries to offer a positive answer even though this goes against her nature. “Well, need is good, right?”
HTM is silent for a moment. Then repeats. “They use me…”
“How?” PP asks, unsure of how to wade into this children using mother territory. Is it a common Ethiopian cultural thing maybe? “Do they ask you to baby-sit their kids? Your grand kids?”

HTM shakes her head. Tears spring into her eyes. Uncontrollably. Gushing down her round brown cheeks. The other women in the sauna all look away, embarrassed. One Son Woman gets up and walks out.

PP doesn’t know what to do. It’s such a surprise. One moment it all seems like a joke. The kids are a problem. The kids are no good. The kids are a headache. Then the next minute. The kids cause copious weeping. In public. In utopia.

PP really wishes that DL were here. To witness if nothing else. But for now, PP just tries to soothe, “Ohhh…. I’m sorry…,” she mutters unhelpfully as the tears continue to pour out, cascading down down down HTM's face. Futilely HTM tries to wipe them away, but they just keep coming. An endless stream.

Damn!

Yet another piece of evidence for PP that kids are a bad idea. They make you cry in Utopia. No one should cry in Utopia!

PP repeats that she’s so sorry. HTM nods, the tears starting to abate, tries for a smile. “It okay.”
“You okay?” PP asks.
“Yes, I’m okay. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” PP nods, heads out of the sauna, embarrassed, helpless. Was it her fault that HTM started to cry? Should she not have pursued the questions around the kids’ using her? What could they be using HTM for that was so horrible? Were they borrowing vast sums of money and not paying it back? Were they invading her home and making her cook and clean and laundry for them while they sat back and watched ESPN? Were they running shady businesses out of HTM’s living room?

What the hell could it be?

PP will never know cuz she sure as hell isn’t gonna ask again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, after her shower, PP passes HTM sitting on the bench chatting amiably with the Serene Science Teacher. Like nothing had happened.

No tears.
No problems.
No kids.

Did PP imagine the whole incident? Were the tears not really there? Was HTM not really there? What was reality? What was fantasy?

What was Utopia?

A place without tears, problems or children.

At least for PP that is.

Thievery

2010-07-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

“I tell you of this friend of mine. He is criminal. All of his life. He tell me he will always be criminal. He will always steal.”
“That is so sad.”
“It is, but he say it is all he know. That since he little boy, he steal.”
“And now he is grown, yes?”
“Oh, yes, he is a man now. But I tell you, I watch my stuffs around him. Even though he my friend.”

They laugh. PP stretches her arm up and over her head, the warm wood soaking into the sore muscles. She’s not going to participate today. It takes too much energy. But yet….

This resolve only lasts till Is So Sad Woman leaves. Friend of Criminal remains in Hilltopia. Alone with PP. So, the conversation must go on.

“I tell them upstair not to let children in here,” FOC scoffs.

PP sits up for this. She hates hates hates the kids in the women’s locker room.

“What did they say?” she asks. “You know, I also swim at Oakland, and no way do any kids even step foot into the women’s locker room. Those women would not stand for any screaming children in their domain!”
“They steal from me!”
“Really? What did they take?”
She glances through the glass window at her pink plastic Lily Wongs bag. “I not find anything missing. Yet.”
“So you saw them trying to take something?”
“Yes! I see them bending over my bag, going through it, and I chase them away. I say, 'HEY! YOU!! GET AWAY FROM THERE!'”
“And they ran away?”
“Oh, yes. But then when I go upstair to tell them about it, they ask me what they look like and I say, I don’t know. They have dark skin…..”

Her voice trails off. Does she know what she’s just slipped into? PP always finds it interesting how people of ‘minorities’ are often biased against each other. In this case, it’s an Asian woman being, dare PP say? racist? against ‘dark skinned’ children, presumably African American, but they could have been Mexican kids or Indian Kids…..or any number of ‘dark skinned’ races.

“Well,” PP nods, obviously she won’t point out the racism—way too taboo. Esp. since PP is a member of the golden blond race. Who also all look the same. Seen one blond, seen them all. “…..at least you were able to chase them off before they took anything.”

“That is true,” she agrees, sighing loudly, settling back into the warm wooden wall.
"Let's hope they don't make their lives one of Crime!" PP jokes.

But FOC turns toward her, nodding. "Yes. But if no one catch them, they get away with it, who know? They could be in Life of Crime."

"That would be so sad," PP repeats.

FOC nods, heaves another long sigh before PP rises and heads out of the sauna.

Sorry for the Inconvenience....

2010-07-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

I

Trudging up the stairs to the Oakland Y, PP spies the signage on the door. Shit. It can’t be. She can’t even read it. How does she know it’s about an ‘emergency pool closure’?

Yet, she does. It’s a swimmer’s intuition. A pessimist's realism.

And sure enough. The sign says:

Attention:
Pool closed for emergency repairs.
Blah blah blah….
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry for the inconvenience?

PP hates hates hates this! Like havin' the pool closed unexpectedly (again!) is an inconvenience?

No it’s life threatening! Don’t they know that without the scheduled swim on Wed., she’ll go absolutely stark raving mad?

Hell, if she’d known the pool was gonna be closed (which of course she didn’t, but more on that later) she woulda braved the Hilltopia Family Noodle Braining Mayhem on Tuesday. Now, she wouldn’t be able to swim till Friday! That’s 1, 2, 3, 4!!! days without swimming!

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

“What happened to the pool?” PP asks the 13 year old clerks at the front counter.
“It’s the same thing,” one answers. “The pump needs to be replaced. But this time they’re gonna fix it.”
“Really?” PP nods, fighting back tears. Damn damn damn. She needs a swim!
“Yes. It’ll be fixed tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t help me tonight.”
They nod, sympathetic, and really PP can tell they are. One of them asks if she brought any other clothes to work out in. Yeah, she had, but she just wanted to be in the water. He nods, but does he get it?
PP thinks not.
II

DL runs into PP in the downstairs lobby on her way up to the ballroom (stretching area). PP's ready to cry and of course, DL gets it completely (unlike the clerks upstairs & even though she’s not a swimmer! No wonder they’ve been friends for 30 years!)

“I just wonder why it keeps happening here,” DL says. “It wouldn’t happen in Palo Alto, for instance.”
“Yeah, it never happens at Hilltop or Berkeley,” PP agrees, thinking.
“It’s something about Oakland and the resources. Something about this Urban Y that isn’t allocated the resources that the other Y’s are because it's Oakland.”
“Yeah….maybe you’re right,” PP agrees. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We should write the BIG Boss and complain,” DL suggests.
“The pool manager?”
”NO, the BIG Boss of the YMCA in the Bay Area.”

“Oh….” PP’s voice trails off. She doesn’t have the energy for this right now. She’s gonna stand here in the lobby and start crying pretty soon.

“I think I have to just go home,” PP murmurs, leaning against the wall as sweat- clothed patrons pass by laughing, jostling. They're happy. They don't need a pool.
“Sure, whatever you need to do,” DL nods.

But PP decides not to go home. All she'd do there is cry, watch bad t.v.and eat microwaved food. How pathetic would that be? No. She's stronger than the Emergency Pool Closure. She'll show 'em!

And she does. Works out on the torture machines with DL, watches So You Think You Can Dance, fights her own nausea after DL points out a woman barfing.
"Oh no, someone got sick...."
"She barfed?"
DL just nods, stops her treadmill workout, trying not to watch the Barf Woman clean up her mess. But can't help it.
"I think it was a Sports Drink. Lime Green."
"GROOOOOSSSSS!"

PP so wishes she were in the pool. She's never in all the years she's been swimming seen anyone barf in the pool. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but then they'd close the pool and well you all know what happens next.

III
Later, talking with Sandy while dressing at the lockers, PP finds out a valuable piece of info about the Y Pool Closures:

“You can sign up with your email to get updates about the pool closing. They have a list,” Sandy tells PP.

WHAT? Why the hell hasn’t anyone ever told her this before? Like the two clerks just now couldn’t have mentioned this? Or a note on the “CLOSURE” sign couldn't include this useful tip for future unforeseen closures.

The update list is a Secret?

Shit, what’s the point of that?

PP has been swimming at the Oakland Y for over 3 years. She’s broken down in tears at the front desk over pool closure at least a half a dozen times. Why the hell didn’t anyone ever think to mention the ‘Update List’?

Sandy shakes her head when PP mentions how she’s never known about this. That she'll sign up.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see if they let you know in time,” she shrugs.
“Good point,” PP nods, but it’s worth a try.
“Sure, it’s worth a try.” Sandy agrees, then tells a story of how when she first came to the mainland from Hawaii and had to join a Swimming Club her relatives back in Hawaii couldn’t believe that she was “PAYING” to go swimming.

PP gets this, of course.

“Where was the club?” PP asks.
Sandy smiles, then looks away. Shy? Abashed? “Piedmont. The Piedmont Swim Club.”

PP nods, wonders how much the Piedmont Swim Club charges per month?

Frankly, whatever it is, it’d definitely be worth it.

Cuz PP bets that the Piedmont Swim Club doesn’t close their pool unexpectedly. Or if it does, they call their regular swimmers ahead of time so they don’t make an unnecessary trip to partake of a much needed swim.

Epilogue

PP signs up for the email 'updates' in the Aquatics category. She's dubious that it will work, but maybe she needs to push down that negativity.

Only time will tell.

The next time the pool is closed, will she get an update?

Her Pessimist's Realism says, 'NO'.
And her Swimmer's Intuition says...?

She'll have to get back to you on that!

Psychic Space!

2010-07-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

“Hi,” 8:30 Super Swimmer Guy leans down to catch PP at the wall, “Can we circle swim?”

Oh dear! The Dreaded Circle Swim! In the Mayhem Mayhem MAYHEM that is Hilltopia this summer, PP has to just laugh or cry.

She chooses laughter this time, “Sure, we can try! But you’re much faster than I am and I’m much faster than he is and so….” She chuckles. Shrugs.

“That’s fine. We’ll work it out,” 8:30 SSG grins, crouching down to try to stop the Super Slug Guy that PP has been sharing a lane with for the past 20 minutes. He swims a jerky breast stroke, his pudgy legs almost kicking her each time she passes him.

Is this cuz of his swimming style? Or his girth? Or his obliviousness?

Most likely all of the above. And because of all of the above, SSG is gonna make the Dreaded Circle Swim even more dreadfully challenging.
“Excuse me,” 8:30 SSG stops The Slug, “Can you circle swim?”
The Slug peers up at him through foggy blue goggles. If PP could see his eyes, which she can’t, she knows they’d be showing what? Astonished Disbelief? Indignant Imposition? Complete Ignorance?

Yet from his response, he does understand the request. “I’m just gonna stay in my own lane (Something he hasn’t been doing since his herky jerky Breast Stroke takes up 3/4's of the lane) "and you two can share the other half.”

8:30 SSG shakes his head, “No, that’s not going to work. We can’t split the other side with the two of us. Don’t worry; I’ll just go around you.”
The Slug shakes his head, vehement. “NO.” (He’s saying no? To circle swimming with all the crowds? While part of PP admires his bravado, she wonders planet he's from. The planet of empty pools? She wants to fly there!)

8:30 SSG tries again, “We need to circle swim.” He points to the sign and the diagram at the far end of the pool, that no one can see anyway, esp. The Slug. “It’s the rules.”

“No, I can’t do that,” The Slug insists, adamant, and takes off down the middle of the lane.
PP looks up at 8:30 SSG in laughing disbelief. “I don’t think he’s a Regular,” she says.
Shaking his head, 8:30 guys stands up and starts doing his windmill arms in prep for entry. He’s gonna swim around The Slug anyway. This is gonna be good, PP thinks.

“I can put another lane in,” The Harried Lifeguard comes over, seeing or sensing the altercation. PP’s surprised that she’s noticed what with 60 billion families braining each other with noodles in the other half of the pool.

Relieved, 8:30 SSG steps over to claim the new lane. PP takes off trying to share with The Slug, almost done with her swim, but just a little sorry that the Circle Swim didn’t happen-- if you can believe that.

But yet, 8:30 SSG’s lane fills up too after a few minutes. 3 swimmers circling, and true to his word, 8:30 SSG just whizzes past them.

“You’re a FISH!” The Slug exclaims to her as she climbs up on the deck, making her like him a little more. She wants to counter with “You’re a Slug!” but thinks better of it.

Catching 8:30 SSG’s eye at the wall, she motions to her now empty half of the lane, “You want my lane?” she offers, grinning.
Shaking his head, 8:30 SSG declines, “Thanks, but I don’t think so.” He nods toward the Slug floating down the middle of the lane, “He seems to be swimming down the middle of the lane. I think I’ll stay here.”
“Yeah, he takes up a Lot of Space!” PP laughs.
“Psychic Space!” 8:30 SSG chuckles, before zooming off in a mighty whirl.

The Eyebrows Have It!

2010-07-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

“You’re gonna think I’m completely superficial, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” Sandy saunters past PP's spacey frantic dressing after swimming before 10 pm.
“That’s ok,” PP calls after her, “I like superficial.”

“Great. You know the Real Bianca? (For those of you out of the loop, Eden Riegel, who played Bianca Montgomery Hot Lesbian Extraordinaire on All My Children has left the show and been replaced with a ‘weak’ Bianca.)

Now, PP nods, eager to hear what Sandy has to say.
“It was her Eyebrows. You know? Those Eyebrows. You couldn’t help but be drawn in.”

“That’s it exactly!” PP agrees, remembering the sexy dark serious brows of The Real Bianca. How when she was playing her Moral Center Role and lecturing about ‘how so and so really knew better than to sleep with so and so’ and with any other actress, the moralizing woulda come off as cliché cuz of course, it was. But with the Real Bianca, her eyebrows let you know that what she was saying was sincere, important and deep. She was NOT superficial!

PP glances over at DL, who’s sitting next to her, humming her little tune, but at the same time listening to the Bianca Analysis intently. PP glances over at her, nods toward Sandy; DL nods back. “That’s it exactly, isn’t it?” whispers PP. “The Eyebrows!”

“Oh yeah!”
“What an insight!” PP exclaims. “Sandy’s just like you—being able to pick out the one physical characteristic that says it all. Like when you said that Ryan’s eyes were too far apart, or David’s neck was too short, or Angie’s hair was wrong (Well, most of us woulda gotten that one.)

DL nods, lost back in her humming reverie.

Sandy’s deep into the lotion portion of her dressing. Is talking about the Claremont Pool. A Pool, regrettably and unbelievably, PP has only heard tell of and never swam in. Now she can’t.

The dreaded sun. Sandy guesses this. She’s not superficial at all really, but gets the sensitive stuff, at least when it has to do with pools and swimming and women. “Yeah, my skin can’t take the sun anymore either,” she commiserates. “I gob lots of sunscreen SPF 85 and wear my rash guard and still, when I get out of the pool, my skin is screaming for moisture. I’m just at that age where it’s not a good idea to be swimming outside anymore. Just can’t do it anymore. So unfortunately, I had to say no to the membership at the Claremont.”

A membership at the Claremont? Shit. PP would dare the sun for that. This pool is supposed to be to die for. Of course, maybe Sandy’s right, and she doesn’t want to die from the sun demons.

Yet, there’s still a part of PP that misses swimming outdoors so much. Esp. when the indoor pool at the Y is complete and total mayhem circle swimming hell!

Call her superficial, but PP still likes the way a tan looks, even though she knows its hazards.

“You ladies have a good night,” Sandy calls out as PP and DL pack up and head out.
“Thanks, you too,” they answer.
DL raises an Eyebrow at PP as they head out of the locker room.

Better than the Real Bianca, that DL is! And definitely NOT Superficial!

Flirting?

2010-07-02T17:36:00.001-07:00

“Lordy it’s crazy out there in that Pool!” Gargantuan Splitting Out of Her Suit women sighs loudly, shaking her head.

PP tries not to turn and run the other way. She’s at Hilltopia, in the sauna, and had already taken a gander at the pool. It was pure kidtopia mayhem.

“And only one lifeguard,” Another Woman comments. PP can’t see her in the dark. But it doesn’t matter. The dialogue will speak for itself.

“It’s so cloudy in the pool. I don’t know how the lifeguard sees anything!” Gargantuan Woman observes.
“Yes. I am very concern about this.” A Timid Accented Woman pipes in.
“Why’s that?” GW asks.
“I need to find out the….” She hesitates, searching for a word. PP isn’t sure where TAW's from since she’s terrible at accents and identifying their origin. Maybe this woman is Eastern European? Russian? Who cares, she has something to say.

Timid Accented Woman wraps her arms around herself, hugging herself to demonstrate what she’s trying to say. PP is confused. How do you say ‘hug yourself’?

“…..I need to find the rule that tell about the….flirting?” she ventures.
“I don’t think there are any rules about flirting,” GW answers.
“Maybe….I …..” TAW pauses again, “….it is when ….I don’t want my daughter to see.”
“What exactly don’t you want your daughter to see?” PP cuts in, impatient for the story.
“The man and the woman. They were in the pool and they were….I don’t want my daughter to see.”
“How old is your daughter?” PP asks.
“7 and half.”
“And what exactly were they doing?” PP presses.
TAW wraps her arms around herself again, “I think it was the ….flirting? I think they were…..” She pauses again, embarrassed, “I hope that there was no discharge. I don’t want my daughter to see that.”

No discharge? Did she just say that? She can’t find the word for sex but she can for discharge?

The wonders of ESL. Gotta love it.

“You mean they was foolin around in the pool? With the kids there?” GW snorts.
“I think so,” TAW nods. “I need to see if there is a rule that doesn’t allow that flirting.”
“It’s more than flirting,” PP interrupts. “And yes, absolutely, they should NOT be having sex in the pool.”

PP feels like such an old fuddy duddy saying this. But on the other hand, it’s completely gross! Semen in the pool? Yucky!

She just doesn’t even want to think about this. Unless the couple was attractive. But this seems unlikely. PP has seen very few ‘attractive’ couples in the Hilltopia Y pool. Not to say that there aren’t any. But just not to PP’s aesthetic which is completely superficial.

“The lifeguard seen it?” GW asks.
“I’m not sure,” TAW answers. “I think probably so.”
“Yeah, you can see everything from above,” Someone Else observes.

PP wonders if this is true. Theoretically it could be. But the lifeguards at Hilltopia seem more detached and spaced out than any she’s seen. They either stare into space or text on their phones.

Evidently, they’re missing out on the show.

“I wonder I should report this?” TAW asks. “I have no evidence.”
"You don’t need no evidence!" GW cries.
“But it’s just my word against theirs."
“That don’t matter. They need to know. You tell them up front. You let them know. Then they’ll tell the lifeguard. They need to be trained."
“Yeah, they’re all very young. They’re embarrassed to say anything,”PP adds.
“Yes, but if they have the training then they will," GW continues, incensed.

Yet, PP wonders if this is true. If she were a lifeguard and had to tell some couple to stop 'flirting' in the pool, would she?

Well, she thinks you all know the answer to that!

Glass Eye!

2010-06-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

“SNARRRTTT!!!” (This is what PP’s little sis calls her—combine ‘fart’ and ‘snot’ and you get Snart. Okay, they were 9 when they made this up, so what do you expect? The strange thing is that they're 50 years old and still resort to this nickname. )

“Guess what I found?”

PP is afraid to ask. They’d been rummaging through little sis’s mother-in-law’s ‘Secretary’ Desk to find such treasures as: Letters about the weather from 1887; WW I Medals from great grandfather; several large ‘gold’ molars. So….PP didn’t really wanna know what the latest discovery was, but knew she had no choice.

“I don’t know. What did you find? I hope it’s not another tooth. I can’t handle that.”
“No, it’s not a tooth. Guess again.”
PP sighs, grins, “Honest, I don’t know. What?”
Lil' Sis holds up her cupped hands to PP’s face. Opens her hands to reveal….

“A GLASS EYE, Snart!” Lil’ Sis cries, delighted.
“GROSS!!!! Get it away from me!”
“Don’t you wanna hold it? It feels nice and smooth and cool and….”
”NO! I don’t want to hold it! Yuck! Put it back.”
“Okay, Snart, but you’re missing out.”

And reluctantly, but still giggling, she put it back in its secret hiding place in the top drawer of the desk.

This, PP thought, was the end of the Glass Eye.

But you guessed it, the theme continues.

The next day, PP partakes of an invigorating swim at the Encinitas YMCA. She’s visiting her sis and so gets access to this country club Y. But the pool is chilly. All those real swimmers from the Masters Team want it cold! The better to build up their lean, tan, muscular magazine cover bodies.

PP feels so white and pasty in San Diego. And she is. And so, this also brings back all those insecurities she felt as a teenager growing up in So Cal. Everyone was tan, lean, blond and athletic. Not that PP wasn’t all of these things; it’s just that she was never able to pull off ‘The Look’ with the same sort of swaggering confidence. And these Masters Swimmers—sure many of them were her age now, but they still had that So Cal ‘Look’—PP hates them.

Anyway, after her chilly swim, she heads for the hot tub, thankfully sliding into the warm bubbly water. Two fit 30 something girlfriends are gossiping in the corner. Completely ignoring her. As expected. One middle aged Indian Gent with too high waist swim trunks, nods and smiles at her. PP likes him cause he’s obviously not from the swim team, but she doesn’t want to encourage him, so she just nods and settles into the corner, closing her eyes.

She rests. She warms. It’s delicious!

After several minutes, she opens her eyes to observe a large pasty middle aged man enter the hot tub, gingerly. Maybe he’d been in the lane next to her in the pool now that she thinks of it. But maybe not. In any case, he nods, and smiles crookedly at her. Leaning one side of his face toward her, his left eye focusing on her; his right eye….

It looks up into his forehead. Not focusing on her at all.

PP feels chills up and down her spine in spite of the warm water.

Could it be?

No, what are the chances?

Two glass eyes in one weekend?

But yet…..

Forehead Eye Man settles down on the bench across from her, but not before giving her a final knowing nod.

It is. A GLASS EYE!!!!! Forehead Eye Man’s roving eye is a glass eye!

PP sinks down into the bubbles, trying not to stare, thinking how she wishes her sister were here to verify the glass eye sighting. (pun intended)

But she’s not. And so, it’s just a story. A good one, PP will grant you that. If you believe it.

Yet, somehow, PP’s still not sure she does.

Homage to the Albany Pool

2010-06-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

On her little Monday walk thinking about the plot of Trollope in Residence and how a plane crash would most definitely move things along, PP realized she’d been walking right past Albany High for the last 10 months and it struck her. Isn’t that where the Albany Pool is where she took the Lovely I for her swimming therapy when she fell off the horse?

So…yeah. It is, she thought, getting excited, walking across the street and into the big high school arched entrance.

Yet, this didn’t seem right. Fortunately a friendly clean-up guy was sweeping the floor.

“Excuse me?” she asked.
He looked up, grinned.
“But isn’t there a pool around here?”
He laughed, leaning on the handle of his broom.
“There was a pool here. They tore it down.”

“Oh…” They tore it down? How the hell could that be? It’s sacrilege to tear down a pool, esp. one that was key to PP’s pool blog and the Lovely I’s recovery.
“Yeah…it was over there,” he nodded behind him. “You need to go back out and around. That’s where it was. They gonna rebuild it though.”

Nodding, PP started out, “Thanks. I thought it was around here.”
“Oh it was. It just ain’t no more. You ain’t crazy.”
He laughed a big laugh and went back to his sweeping.

Heading out of the building, PP thought how it was good to know that she wasn’t crazy, but as she walked around the basket ball courts, thinking that it looked familiar, she felt disoriented. Yes, this did seem like where she wheeled the Lovely I past the shooting hoop hooligans. But was the pool in this big building?

She tried to see through—no, it wasn’t here. It was just some locked up auditorium or gym--PP knew this cause there was not one whiff of chlorine.

She glanced behind her. A chain link fence surrounded a large rectangular dirt field.

Shit. Could this be where the pool was? Had they filled the pool with dirt?

She walked around it, examining the weeds growing out and a couple of weird pipe thingees poking out of the ground. Were these what was left of the pumping apparatus?

It was just too horrible! A pool filled up with dirt! And esp. such a wonderful pool! PP still remembered all the floating shower cap ladies in their brightly colored caps of purple and yellow and green and orange and the Lovely I being lowered into the pool and then happily walking with the Asian History Guy (PP knows she’s got this detail wrong) —but you know what she means—the pool was ALIVE—and now, it was dead….

It was a nightmare.

Actually, once in awhile PP does have this nightmare where the pool that she swam in in Hacienda Heights is filled with dirt. She goes back to the house, and into the backyard, and the sweet little pool where she’d swam 100’s of laps was filled up and grassed over.

At least in her dream, the pool was covered with a green green lawn.

The desolation of the dirt pool here in Albany was truly stunning.

She stood for a moment at the chain link fence, staring at the dirt.

What? Like if she stared long enough it’d come back to life? That the blue water would appear, the shower cap ladies would be floating, and the Lovely I would be laughing (or crying) as all the pool action happened?

Sighing, she turned away. It was too weird.

Walking away from it, she passed a mom playing tennis with her two daughters. Laughing, flailing, stumbling around the court.

One of the daughters almost fell over reaching for a shot; they all convulsed into giggles.

Yes, there was still life here. And maybe it's not the magic of the Albany Pool, but the pool will always be in PP's memory and on her blog and in Pool Heaven (there must be a pool heaven!)

Goodbye, Albany Pool! We shall miss you!

Murp....

2010-06-09T17:02:00.001-07:00

It was a small pitiful little murp. Like a kitten that’d been left out in the rain and had been mewing all night long. Its voice nearly gone, but had enough left to make the call into the night.

PP was on the toilet. So she only heard it. But knew right away who it was: Scraping Walker Woman.

“I always have to get dressed on the floor…otherwise I …..”

PP had overheard SWW explaining her reasons for being on the floor to someone who had asked. Or hadn’t. SWW liked to talk. PP could see why. What with her lack of mobility. She probably didn’t get out except to the Y here at Hilltopia and this took her all day.

So now, with the plaintive ‘murp’, PP flushed the toilet and headed in SWW's direction. And yes, there she was, on the floor, balancing precariously on one naked hip, eyes watery with tears just like Ellie Thompson in Katherine Anne Porter’s “Noon Wine.”

“Are you okay?” PP didn’t usually like to ask. Once she’d offered to pick up the shampoo bottle that SWW had been kicking along the floor and had been thoroughly rebuked. “No, no, leave it. I can do it.”

And so now, asking her if she were okay seemed a risk.
But the murp hung in the air.
And now the tears and the obvious distress.

“Do you need some help?” PP asked.
“Oh yes!” Relief flooding over her. “If you wouldn’t mind.” She pointed at her foot and then at the scrunched up nylon gray sock on the floor. “Could you help me put my sock on?” Her tears started to run down her face. PP almost started to cry to. Damn. What would it be like to not even be able to put your own socks on? Hell, PP complained all the time about this or that. But this?

“Of course,” PP knelt down and took the sock from her.
“I hope it won’t make you sick?” SWW cringed in pain? Shame? Little did she know that PP was so easily squeamish. PP tried not to look too hard at the poor gnarled toes all scrunched on top of each other the toenail ingrown into the big toe.

PP stopped looking and began to ease the sock on. “Is this hurting you?” she asked.
“Oh, no. Oh thank you!” as PP continued to work the sock over her curled, lifeless foot. “Can you manage it now?”

“Oh yes! Thank you so much! You are so kind. And you didn’t lecture me. My husband he tells me that I should use the walker all the time and I want to use a cane but then I fell, see? She pointed to a large purple bruise on her raised hip. Did she just do this? Is this why she needed help?

PP didn't want to ask, so she just smiled, nodded, “You’re welcome. I’m glad I was here to help.”
“Yes, and you didn’t lecture me,” she repeated.
Puzzled, PP laughed, “I’m not usually the lecturing type this late in the day.”
They both giggled as PP wondered what they hell would anyone lecture her about? Falling down? Asking for help? Crying?

Damn.

It was all too much and so PP left her, but not before asking again if she could manage. “Oh yes, I’m fine now. Thank you so much!” SSW smiled through the tears, her bluey eyes wet.

Sighing, PP went to shower for the pool. She really needed a swim now.

But...was that another 'murrrp' echoing from the locker room? she wondered as she turned off the shower.

No, couldn't be as PP heard, "I had to go down to the DMV today. That's why I'm here so much later than usual. My husband, he says....."

Thankful

2010-06-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

"Thank God for the YMCA and the Internet!"

All the women in Hilltopia nod (or at least as far as PP can tell in the dark) as if this proclamation makes perfect sense. And maybe it does. PP can see why one would thank God (if one were so inclined) for the YMCA. She is thankful (though not necessarily to a Higher Power) every time she comes to the Y. Well, except for the times when the pool is closed. Or crowded. Or cold.

But this is beside the point. She is thankful for the Y.

But the Internet? Maybe. Maybe not. She thinks that the Internet is a huge ‘time suck’ as one of her students is fond of saying. In point of fact, PP has just spent the last 55 minutes looking for pictures of ‘cute….animals'or 'beautiful beaches',or 'baby cows' (you get the idea) on Google images so she can change her desktop image.

Almost an entire hour! Wasted! (Well, she did finally find a super cute pic of a gang of baby penguins. Here it is for your gushing approval.)

So the Internet is a time suck. And it’s also so goddamn frustrating. For example, this morning she was trying to find out what ‘points’ means when buying a piece of property, but an ad for ‘If you haven’t had a ticket in 3 years, you’re paying too much for car insurance’ kept popping up and blocking her purpose.

She gave up. It seemed that points and car insurance had her beat.

The Internet. She is not thankful for it most of the time. Unless it’s for email to her friends and family. Or Facebook silliness.

Yet even if she were thankful for the Internet and the YMCA, PP wonders why the two are thrown together with such cavalier abandon here in Hilltopia?

It’s a mystery. The women just say things. Non sequiturs fly willy nilly through the steamy air. Immediately after the declaration of being thankful for the Y and the Internet, another woman proclaims how “For Africa Women, not having child. It is death.”

Okay, well, for PP having a child woulda been death.

But she didn’t offer this as a follow-up conversation piece. Just like she couldn’t really comment too much on Sweet Roly-Poly’s long harangue about losing 10 lbs in one month other than to say that sounded like a lot and then nodding when Death For Africa Woman said that it was ‘The Nature’ for men to lose more weight without even working out or dieting.

PP does like this use of the definite article. The Nature. It’s so very apt in this context. Don’t you agree?

So…..back to being thankful. PP is. Not in general mind you, but in specific. Like at the moment when she’s in Hilltopia after a long hard trying swim, exhausted and heaterized letting the non sequiturs and laughter wash over her.

It’s so much better than the Internet. Or children. Or diets. Something PP doesn't have to worry about; which to judge with how much time/energy/emotion most middle-aged women spend on dieting, is something to be very very very Thankful for!

So....

2010-05-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

So…. (PP likes this beginning today. Jon Carroll wrote about the empathetic reader usage of the word ‘so’—PP is paraphrasing badly here—and how the word ‘so’ implies a continuing ‘invitation’ to the reader. We were having this conversation before, we were interrupted because the column, blog, book ended, but hey, we’re back again, ready to story away. Or in this case, to blog away…)

So….PP was doing just fine until she tried to go to the Oakland YMCA. No one had broken down in tears over her paper; no one had flaked on sending in her paper over the email; no one had had anything but smiles and appreciation all day for PP.

So….she was in a good mood. Off to Utopia to meet DL. It was always an event to look forward to, right?

So, when PP landed at Broadway and 22nd street where the Y was situated, and there were no parking places, she thought, well, this was to be expected. She did expect it. She liked it when her expectations were not realized around this situation, but she never expected to just drive up Broadway and park right in front of the Y. This is a rare and wonderful occurrence.

So, as you may have inferred, this most assuredly did NOT happen this evening. PP went around and around and around the YMCA block. Car after car scooped her on parking places. Yes! There’s one on Grey Plush Cat Street. Sweet! Nope, that stupid bitch in her Cadillac Escalade does a U turn and swerves right into it ahead of her. Damn. Okay, this happens.

So, she circles again. Another spot opens up. This time right in front of the Y. YES! But no, there’s a zippy black Lexus backing into it at 79 miles an hour.
Damn.

And so on…..

Finally, finally finally after 15 minutes, PP is very near tears. Muttering to herself, “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Damn damn damn if DL wasn’t going to be meeting me I’d just to home...."

And there it is. A silver Chevy pulls out. She screeches to a halt. Puts the emergency blinkers on. Cars swerve around her. She doesn’t care. She’s staying put till the silver Chevy exits. He does. The space is super small. Between two huge SUV’s. Her first attempt at parallel parking is a bust. She tries not to cry. Pulls out again, tries one more time. And finally.

She’s parked.

For a moment she just sits in the car. Breathing. Okay, she did it. Everything is going to be okay. All she needs is a swim to put everything right.

And, so...to the pool.

Up the stairs, lugging all of her junk, PP tries to smile at the chattering clerks. Till she sees the sign.

Pool closed
till further notice
due to Pump Failure.

WHAT!!!!????

How oh how could this be?

So…what do you think PP does?

Collapse in a crying heap on the lobby floor, sobbing piteously, wailing, “I can NOT believe the pool is closed. I can’t believe it!” at the top of her lungs, creating a scene worthy of a mad heroine in a Wilkie Collins novel?

Or….does she sigh, turn around and just leave?

Or….does she stand there for a moment, glaring at the clerks, who finally notice her, fins in hand, moroseness on face, “Oh, the pool is closed!” one of them exclaims, sympathy oozing.

PP doesn’t want any sympathy. She wants, no she needs to swim!

“Why?” PP asks, knowing the answer since it’s right there on the sign: Pump Failure. Whatever the hell that means. Why does a pool need a pump?

She was going to find out.

“The water level kept getting lower and lower,” one of the clerks offers, “and no one knew what was going on till we called in someone who told us that the pump was broken and so all the water was leaking out and so (so!) the pump has been replaced and the pool is filled with water again, but it’s too cold for swimming.”

”How cold?” PP asks.
“Like 60 degrees,” the other one shakes her head. “Too cold.”
PP doesn’t answer. As you all know anything under 80 degrees is too cold for her.
60 degrees?
The pool may as well have still been waterless. Cold water. No water. Same thing.

“I really needed a swim,” PP mutters, not looking at either of the clerks.
“You want go to Berkeley?” Cold Reporter One offers.
“NO, I can’t drive anymore!” PP sighs, grimacing. “I guess since I’m meeting my friend, I’ll just do the machines. But it’s not the same as swimming.”
CRO nods sympathetically.
“So, great!” The Other One exclaims. “Go ahead. Come on in. Take a hot tub. Relax!”

Relax?

PP almost slapped her.

But she didn’t.

So, what to do but do the workout with DL. And it’s fun. So (Isn’t this word everywhere?) You Think You Can Dance was on the TV’s over the treadmills. PP doesn’t have earphones, but this okay. She can watch. And remember.

All was well before she came to the Y.

And now all is well because of DL and SO YTYCD!

So, next time you’ve had a really fine day and then something really bad happens like you can’t find a parking place and the pool is closed, remember: Swimming isn’t everything. There is fine Y time without the pool.

So….do you believe her when she says this?

Nah, you’re way too smart and have been in ‘this conversation’ way too long to believe even one word that PP writes!