Good Job

 

“Okay, Ladies! The pool is closed. The locker room closes in 1 minute!” The lifeguard stalks through the locker room, announcing the closure loudly. Doesn’t make eye contact with any of the half dozen or so women still half dressed.

            No one seems in a rush. Except for me. I always try to get out on time. But it’s hard. I’m so slow.

            “You can do it, Girl!” Singing Woman encourages me, grabbing the keys to her Mercedes lying on the bench. “I have a story about my husband at Costco. He tells me, every time I wanna go to Costco, ‘I don’t wanna go with you. You’re too slow.’ And this one time, I tell him, ‘I just have to return something. I won’t be long.’ So he says, ‘Okay’. And I leave him in the car while I go in, but of course, I pick up a few other things that I needed, this hairbrush, and some real cute sandals, you know? It’s hard to resist. But still, I wasn’t gone long. When I get back to the car, I ask my husband, ‘See I wasn’t gone long, was I?’ And he just shrugs and says, ‘I guess not.’ ‘You guess not! You guess not!’ I say to him. ‘You supposed to say, GOOD JOB, TRUDY! GOOD JOB!’”

            I start laughing, trying to gather all my swim gear and toss it in my gym bag before the lifeguard comes back in and starts yelling at us. And, I think, this commendation of ‘Good Job’ is so overused that it has no meaning. I remember watching the movie, Whiplash, where the hellishly abusive drum teacher, J. K. Simmons, yelled at one of his students about how being told he’d done a ‘good job’ gave students permission to be lazy and unmotivated. “Good job!” he’d yelled, terrifying the student, “The two most useless words in the English language for a teacher to use to motivate his students. You haven’t done a ‘good job’, you haven’t even done an adequate job. You are here. You sit on your ass and pound on the drums like some sort of cartoon idiot, and you expect me to say, ‘Good job.’ Well, it ain’t gonna happen buddy. Not on my watch!”

            I’m guilty of this too when teaching piano. Especially with the little kids. They just exhaust me. They don’t listen to me. When they do anything that halfway resembles music or what I’ve been trying to get them to do, say play the melody of Mary Had a Little Lamb with both the right and left hand even though you could just play it with the right hand, well, I just shrug and say, “Good Job, Jenny.” And Jenny beams. Sometimes smiling and wriggling. She’s happy with herself. I’m happy to not yell at her. Saying ‘good job’ does the trick.

            Now, in the locker room, Singing Woman laughs along with me, “You see? You can do it! I’m outta here!” She lifts her bag onto her shoulder, gives a wave to everyone, heads out of the lockeroom.

            I yell after her, “Good job, Trudy. Good job!”

            All the women in the locker room start laughing, the sound of their mirth floating up into the cold sterile walls of the room.

            I walk over to the mirror, start to yank at my wet hair to get the tangles out, thinking, if I can get most of these tangles out, it will be a good job.

            And, I don’t even have to go to Costco to get a new brush to do it.

            Good job, Cj, Good job, I say to myself, yanking the last clump free. I toss my brush into my bag and hurry out of the locker room, the echo of "LADIES! THE LOCKER ROOM IS NOW CLOSED!" following me out into the parking lot. 

The Peace Apple?

 

“Ahhh….at least it’s cooler today!” L exclaims as we spill into the parking lot of the Kennedy Pool facility, the last three women to straggle out.

            It had been too hot the last few days, especially for the middle of March. Usually, northern California has plenty of rain in March. In fact, some years it’s even been dubbed ‘Miracle March’ when the storms sweep through in an otherwise dry year, giving the snowpack and reservoirs much needed reserves.

            But not this year. This year, the rain stopped in March. Each day clear and blue and waterless. People exclaim over how beautiful the weather is. How nice it is to be out in the warmth. Yet the warmth and sunshine at this time of year portends more drought. Don’t people get this?

            I like the warmth. I’ll admit it. But I also have a healthy does of anxiety (can anxiety ever be healthy?) about the lack of rain tied to the climate crisis and potential drought. California has been in a severe drought for more years than not in my adult life. There are stats about this, but the bottom line is, no rain in March is NOT a good thing.

            Today, when L exclaims about the relieving coolness from the previous few days of blistering heat, V, loaded down with armfuls of plastic bags, shakes her head and smiles at me, sitting at the table eating my Good For You Brownie Bar snack. “I like the warm weather,” she says to me, almost conspiratorially? Or am I just imagining this? L has trundled off to her Jeep, waving goodbye to us and the conversation. I am left to respond to V’s comment? Esp since it does seem aimed at me. Almost a dare? But again, am I imagining this?

            “Yeah,” I agree now, but can’t help but mention what the heat means, “But we need the rain. You know, climate crisis and all.”

            V stops shuffling around in her trunk with all the plastic bags. Turns toward me, taking a few steps in her tottering white high healed sandals: “We have enough water,” she hisses, staring at me long and hard. Almost a threat? Daring me to contradict her? But before I can respond, she says, “It’s the price of gas that we should be worried about! I paid $5.99 a gallon this morning! Can you believe that? $5.99!!!!”

            I nod, knowing that gas is way up because of Trump’s deadly and unnecessary war with Iran. The price of oil going up and up each day: 10%, 25%, 30%. And, yes, we drivers are paying for it with the price of gas. Yet all moral outrage aside about this war, we can live without gas. Water, on the other hand, is a resource that we can’t live without. It’s a finite resource. And with the climate crisis, with longer and more severe droughts, the issue of not having enough water is a real one.

            I decide not to get into all of this, though, with V today. She seems too agitated. A bit unhinged. I’ve always thought she was a little crazy. Spending over an hour in the locker room primping: makeup, hair drying, fancy dresses and shoes. Everyone else tries to get out of the locker room as quickly as possible. It’s not a nice place after all. Cold cement floor, freezing air temperature, screaming kids.

            V has turned back to her car now and is bending over the trunk, rifling through the plastic bags. Emerging, she turns toward me, hand outstretched, something in her palm.

            “Hey, Carol, do you want an apple?”

            What???? I start laughing. Where did this come from? Is she offering me a piece of fruit to allay the tension we’ve had about the price of gas and the lack of water?

            “Uhh…no, thank you,” I say. I don’t elaborate about how I don’t really like fruit. Sometimes, sure, I’ll eat an apple. But taking one out of someone’s trunk that’s been there for who know how long isn’t my idea of a good snack.

Instead, I just shake me head and watch as she takes a big bite out of the fruit.

            “You sure?” she says, chewing loudly. “I’ve got more.”

            “Nah, that’s okay, I have to go,” I rise, grabbing my keys and hat off the tabletop.

            “You have a good day now,” she calls after me as I head across the parking lot.

            “Thanks, you too,” I answer, inwardly thinking how strange it was that she offered me an apple after the tense exchange we had.

            But maybe it was a Peace Apple, as Ian suggested when I told him the story later. “You know, maybe she knew she was wrong and she wanted to give you a gift to say she was sorry.”

            I doubt it, I think. But maybe he’s right. Maybe it was a Peace Apple.

           

             

           

           

Sexy and Spiky

Photo by Getty Images

 

“I need to get my purple hair shampoo,” Alice announces to all of the women in the shower. In the Kennedy High pool locker room, after a surprisingly calm swim for a Sunday, I am trying to get warm, letting the hot stream of water cascade over my back.

            “Does it really turn your hair purple?” I holler after Alice as she shuffles back with the large plastic bottle, which is indeed, purple.

            “It’s not really purple,” she chuckles. “Well, you know…like it’s blue, you know what I mean?”

            I think of old ladies, their grey hair tinted blue. Have I seen this? Or is it just from the movies?

            “My hair used to turn green,” I comment to L, another swimmer to the left of me in the shower.

            “Oh, I loved it when the boys had green hair!” she exclaims. “It was all sexy and spiky.”

            I nod, laughing, thinking how my own green hair was just slimy and shiny. Sexy? I doubt it, but who thinks they’re sexy at 14? How can I even remember being 14? But I do remember the green hair. How in order to get it out, we’d have to douse our heads with tomato juice. Pouring thick red goo on to our heads. Me and my sisters giggling and laughing. “EWWWWW! It smells so bad!” “Nah!” my sister, P, would refute. “It’s like our heads are pizzas!” “Gross!” our little sister, L, would wrinkle her nose. Not having blonde hair, she didn’t have to undergo the tomato sauce regime to remove the chlorine sheen.

            Tomato juice was used for other untoward situations. I remember one of our dogs getting sprayed by a skunk. The stench was hideous. Potent and nauseating. The dog, of course, had just been chasing the skunk, but the skunk as skunks will do, hadn’t cottoned to this. Hence the spray. We’d take the dog into the shower, my mom drenching it with tomato juice, emptying cans and dumping them on the dog. Rubbing it in. Then rinsing. Repeating this several times. Then, after all the stench was removed (as best it could be), it was time for the Suave Green Apple shampoo. The dogs loved the results afterward. Prancing around the house, the odor of green apples wafting throughout the house.

       

     “Do you want to try some?” Alice asked another grey-haired woman in the shower.

            “Sure,” she said.

            “Aren’t you afraid of having purple hair?” I asked.

            She shook her head, “That’s okay.”

            My shower mate grinned, “I once tried to dye my hair, but it was too dark. We bleached it first, but still it wouldn’t take. I always wanted blue hair.”
            “Blue is my favorite color!” I exclaimed.

            “Exactly!” she said, turning off the shower, wringing her suit, gathering up her various hair product bottles, long toothed comb, and razor.

            Rinsing out the shampoo, I thought about the green hair of my youth. Swimming was an everyday activity. Green hair just went with the territory.

            Now?

            I wring out my hair, feeling the slimy wetness of it, glancing down at the ends.

            No green anymore. But maybe some blue? Or purple?

            “Hey, Alice,” I say, before leaving the shower area. “Do you bring your purple shampoo everyday? Maybe I could try some next time.”

            She laughs. Hearty and amused. “Of course! You’d look so cute with purple hair!”

Nodding, I think, she’s right. I would look cute with purple hair. I stand in the middle of the locker room, toweling off, listening to the chatter of the women. 

"Are you going to the march on Saturday?"

 "I'm thinking about it, are you?"  

"Swimming makes me so hungry. I'm ready to have me some Chinese!"

"Mmmm....you said it girl, let's ...."

Grinning,  I open my locker, pull out my clothes, and start to get dressed. 

 

 

           

           

           

Protein

 

It seems you can’t get away from it. The topic of protein. Not enough protein in your diet. Better eat more protein. Tired? You must not be getting enough protein!

            Don’t Americans devour slabs of meat every day? Loaded with protein. Not to mention cholesterol, fat and calories!

            I don’t eat red meat. I think it’s disgusting. Plus, it’s bad for the planet. And cows are so cute. So maybe I do need more protein? How much protein should I eat? 

When I researched this later, there is actually a complicated formula based on gender, age, activity level and weight. But this didn't come up in the discussion today post swim in the women’s locker room of the Kennedy High Pool. Protein Calculator

            “You need at least 50 grams of protein every day,” Protein Woman announced.

            “I know I don’t get that much,” her friend shakes her head. It’s such a problem.

            “If you don’t get enough protein, it can affect your immune system,” Protein Woman continues.

            “Really?” LS asks. “I never knew that.” I glance over at her; my naughty side wants out.

            “Do M&Ms have protein?” I interject into the conversation, thinking I was being funny.

But no. These Protein Women are serious!

            Not missing a beat, let alone crackin a smile, Protein Woman answers: “As a matter of fact, if you eat the peanut M&Ms, you get you some protein that way.”
            “Or, if you eat the peanut butter ones, you get even more!” her friend adds. “Mumm mum I love me those peanut butter M&Ms!” She shakes her head in imagined satisfaction as she pulls on her navy sweatshirt.

            “Me too!” I beam, pulling on a damp sock. “But they’re highly addictive!”

            “Oh, yeah, tell me about it!” Protein Friend agrees. “Once I get started on those, I can’t stop myself.”

            I remember a family gathering, maybe for a holiday, Christmas or Thanksgiving, when there was a bowl full of these peanut butter M&Ms on the coffee table.  My sister Laura and I were sitting on the sofa, grabbing handfuls of them. “I can’t stop eating these,” she said, munching happily.

            “I know,” I agreed, grabbing a handful myself.

            If only I’d known then that we were feeding our protein quota! We had permission to stuff our faces with candy! It was good for us!

            “I’m gonna go home and eat some right now!” I announced. “I’m feeling like I need to add more protein to my diet today!”

            “Mm mm mmmm!” Protein Woman hums. “We gonna go out to lunch today and git us some chicken tacos at Los Hermanos.”

            “That sounds delicious,” I slam my locker closed, grabbing my swim gear to follow them out, remember how when I worked at the Sylvan Learning Center in El Cerrito, the nerdy manager had a get to know you questionnaire for me. One of the questions was What is your favorite restaurant? I said the Vietnamese restaurant, Huong Tra.  He said Los Hermanos. I wonder if he knew he was helping meet his protein quota if he ate the chicken tacos?

            I’m getting hungry now writing this. I think it’s time for some 

peanut butter M&Ms! And Cheezits. Do these have protein in them too? Let me go take a look….

 

            Well, what do you know? They do! 3 grams of protein per serving. And the peanut butter M&Ms? 3 grams of protein per serving. Now I just have to eat 4 servings of each to get 48 grams of protein!

            Who needs red meat?

            “Enjoy your lunch,” LS calls out after the two women as they head out of the locker room.

            “Oh, we will!” Protein Woman chuckles as she waves goodbye.

            “You want some peanut butter M&Ms?” I ask LS. “I’ve got a bag at home.”

            “Oh, no thank you,” she declines softly.

            I know she doesn’t eat candy. But then I wonder, without peanut butter M&Ms is she getting enough protein?

           

Sound Sigh

 

 

Parking her well-traveled Toyota Corolla in the handicapped spot in front of us, Violet jumps out of the front seat. Her eyes are bright and excited behind her wire-rimmed granny glasses as she heads over toward me and LS.

            “I just had to come over and tell you guys something,” she says, breathless.

            “We can see that,” LS says, smiling.

            We had watched the Toyota drive past us and then change its mind, backing up and then pulling into the vacant spot.   We’d been chatting in our usual post swim way, talking about bats and creeps and movies. Most recently, we'd watched the film, Columbus, about an architect's son and a fan of this architect, touring the modernist buildings in Columbus Indiana. We had found the film provocative on one level, but ponderous and slow on another. "What makes a movie pretentious and ponderous?" LS was asking when Violet interrupted us. 

              “What have we got here?” I’d asked LS, as I watched Violet hurrying toward us. She had some message of great import. Or so it seemed.

              “I guess we’re gonna find out,” LS said.

            “I’ve been studying with this guru" Violet began, "and he told me how if you want to get rid of the stress and anxiety that we all hold on to, I have a lot of pain in my shoulders and neck, so this works for that too, you can try these deep breathing exercises for 15 minutes….”

            “15 minutes!” LS exclaims. “That’s a long time!”

            “Yes, well, whatever….” Violet grins at us. “But anyway, here’s the secret. When you breathe in deeply and hold it, 1…2….3…..4…..5…..6….7….and then release it, you have to sigh out loud!”

            She demonstrates for us with a dramatic lyrical sigh. “Aaaaaahhhhhh!” she spouts.  “The key is you have to make the actual sigh noise!”

            “Okay,” LS and I say. “We’ll give it a try.”   

            And we do, breathing in and then releasing with a loud, sing song sigh.

            “You know, I think that works,” LS says. “I feel better!”

            Violet beams, nodding in affirmation, her thick grey hair floating around her earnest expression in the breeze. “Right? I just thought that I had to tell you two. We were talking last week about anxiety and sleeplessness and aches and pains. We all get those! And since I’ve been practicing this out loud sighing, well, I have to tell you, I feel so much more relaxed.”

            “I had a colleague that I worked with at JFK in the library who would make these long-exasperated sighs," I said.  "The library was always dead in the afternoon between classes. The silence was thick.  I’d be in my office to the side of the library, reviewing a paper or reading an article, and all of a sudden, I’d hear this loud, and I mean, loud, sigh from K behind the desk, breaking the silence with a sudden crashing rupture.  The first time I heard her do this, I thought there was something wrong with her. ‘K! Are you okay?’ And she’d call back, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just bored.’ It was the funniest thing.”

            Violet laughs softly. “That sounds a little different than this practice, but it’s the same idea. The sound is key. You can’t exhale silently; you have to make the noise!”

            I try this during the week. There is so much to sigh about. All the anxiety over Ian and his treatments, the rush to make appointments, the sitting around in the infusion center while the chemo drips into his port, the state of the climate with no rain in sight and the snow drought making headlines, not to mention the hell that ICE has put the city of Minneapolis through by murdering two protesters, both US citizens, both white folks, now gone gone gone.

            I need to breathe. Sometimes I find myself forgetting. I’m driving to pick up Ian at the BART and I’m running late and sitting at the signal at San Pablo and Potrero I realize that I’m holding my breath. Damn! I need to breathe.

            And so, I’m practicing the Sound Sigh Breath that Violet showed us that day after our swim, another source of anxiety and stress since the El Cerrito pool has been closed and all of its swimmers have flooded our Kennedy High pool here in Richmond. The lanes are packed and the people are rude.

            Breathe!

            It does help. The more I practice this, the better I feel. Of course, I often forget to do this. But then I remember, when the stress gets to be too much and I’m not breathing.

            Carol. Breathe in….1….2….3….4….5…

            Breathe out. And SIGH! Noisily! Satisfyingly. A release of all that energy inside that is just making me crazy.

            Give it a try. It really works. Sure, you may feel a little silly at first. But who cares? Who’s listening?

Ready?

1…2….3….AHHHHHHHHH!

Towel Face

 

“Thanks for throwing your towel in my face!”

It’s square can’t stop talking woman. There’s a phrase for this trait in Spanish that I just learned on Duolingo: Ella habla hasta por los codos. She talks non-stop. I’ve witnessed this on several occasions here at the Kennedy High Pool. In the water, her square top half covered in a long-sleeved black stretched out rash guard. Her mouth moving non-stop, words spewing forth with no pause whatsoever.

            But today? It’s just one sentence, hurled at me when I set my stuff on the bench in the women’s locker room.

            I threw my towel in her face?

            Uh?

            I glance down at my towel, the worn green and gold Hawaiian Islands crumpled innocently on the wooden bench. Was her face on the bench when I threw the towel down? How could that be? Was she kneeling on the floor, resting her head on the bench, talking talking talking?

            I have no clue. I’m way too cold to try to figure it out. But still, I’m baffled.

            “What are you talking about?” I ask. “Did I hit you with my towel?”
            “You sure did!” she laughs.

            “Oh, I didn’t notice; I was just so cold and trying to hurry into the showers. I didn’t see you. Sorry.” I think to myself how I really can’t handle this right now. My life is in constant upheaval with Ian’s illness. Between the various doctors’ appointments and phone calls, constant driving him around to these appointments, plus the underlying worry that all of this is for naught. What if he (and I) go through all this work to heal him and the chemo doesn’t work? Or if the chemo does shrink the tumor, and the surgeons give him the necessary Whipple operation, how will he weather that?

            I tell myself that it’s just one day at a time, but it’s been a challenge. I don’t like to live like this, not knowing what each day will bring. So, I’m on edge. And I’m cold. And Towel Woman is testing my patience.

            But then she backs down: “No matter,”  now full of good humor.

            I am really cold now, standing in my wet suit, going back and forth with her over this inane accusation that I threw my towel in her face.

            I glance over at LS, who shrugs and rolls her eyes. I can hear her inner thoughts: “Weirdo!”

            Why are there so many weirdos at the pool? I wonder, grabbing my shampoo and conditioner and my TOWEL to hang on the hooks outside the showers. There’s the Perv—he’s the biggest weirdo and the most revolting. I can’t believe that he works at the pool still after his sexual harrassment of me: “I can see through your swimsuit. You might consider replacing it.”

            Then there’s the Creep. He’s never done anything overtly creepy to me. He just is creepy, with his too tan leather skin, beady eyes always looking the women up and down, stopping at the wall and feeling himself underwater.

            Oh, and the Freak, aka the Cry Baby. He’d gotten all bent out of shape cuz GL hadn’t ‘accommodated’ him when he tried to share his lane. There was an acutal screaming breakdown on the deck, with the Freak yelling at GL and threatening to call the supervisor.

            The pool is full of these undesirables. I don’t need them in the women’s locker room too. I do remember a time when the women were getting dressed, discussing the heinous policies of Donald Trump and Towel Woman had grinned and said, “I can’t say this too loud, but I actually voted to Trump. I think he’s a genius.”

            Doesn’t this opinion say it all? She’s delusional. So, she probably just made up this ‘fact’ that I threw my towel in her face.

            I’d wished I’d seen my towel land on her face. Seen the shock and outrage at the time.

            But part of me just doesn’t believe her.

Jingle Bells Jiggle

 

 

Jingle bells

Jingle bells

Jingle all the way….

 

            Singing woman sings out of key into the locker room of Kennedy High Pool. Completely uninhibited. Nothing unusual about that. Her earbuds in, her big bare brown rump swaying to the rhythm; she's naked and festive.

            LS gives me a look from across the bench. I start laughing. She shakes her head. Rolls her eyes. I grin.

            “Why is she singing Christmas Song?” Z demands from the other side of me. “It’s not even Thanksgiving!”

            I shrug, “Well, at least Christmas is close.”

            Often Singing Woman sings Jingle Bells, even in the summer. It’s August. The air is as hot as the Bay Area gets. 78 or maybe even 81 degrees. And, she’s inside the locker room singing Jingle Bells.

            It is a catchy tune I suppose if a little tired. I remember teaching piano lessons to the kids out in Orinda at Christmas time. Everyone wanted to learn Jingle Bells. The kids would bang out the melody. I’d join in with the standard chords in the bass. I have to admit their excitement was contagious even though I wasn’t really a big fan of Jingle Bells. There are other Christmas Carols that I prefer: Silver Bells, Ukrainian Bells—a duet that I used to play with my mother at Christmas. Dressed in our long red velvet dresses, we’d sit together on the piano bench and play this lovely carol together.

Carol of the Bells

            But Jingle Bells? Only with the kids.

            “I will take him to that Thai restaurant on the water. Yeah. He likes that place. It’s one of his favorites. And we’ll go there for dinner for his birthday and it’ll be fine.”
            I overhear Singing Woman talking to herself. Or is she taking notes over Jingle Bells? I glance over at her as I throw my lotions, swimsuit, and masks into my bag.

            “I just figured out what I’m gonna do for my godson for his birthday. I’m gonna take him to this Thai place that he loves. Out in San Leandro.  On the water.”

            “That sounds lovely,” I offer.

            “Yeah, I was gonna take him to see Mariah Carey in Vegas,  but I checked the ticket prices online. $240!!!”

            “Wow!”

            “I’d be in debt for the next year!” She chuckles.

            “No need for that if you can take him to Thai Food.”

            “Exactly!”

            She’s almost dressed now, but the Jingle Bells have captured her again. She starts singing more loudly, with more abandon and more out of tune.

            “Jingle Bells….Jingle Bells….” She sings.

            I join in, “...jingle all the way!”

            She grins over at me as we both sing out: “OH, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, HEY!”

            LS heads out of the locker room with Z. They’re chatting quietly with their heads together, not partaking of the festive caroling.

            I gather up my swim bag, grab my fins, slip my big parka on, “Have a great Thai Dinner!” I call out as I head to the exit.

            “Thank you!” Singing Woman says. “I’m so glad I figured that out!”

            “Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells…..” echoes after me as I open the heavy glass doors and step into the day.

Natalie Cole sings Jingle Bells