It’s Meditative

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

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!

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

“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

“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

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

“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....

"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

“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

“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

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!

“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

‘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

“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

“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.