Italian Counts and Cats

“It’s about time!” Sandy proclaims, squirting another splash of water on her beady body.

DL and PP laugh as they find a spot in Utopia. PP needs this. The pool was Splash Hell this evening. She was forced to share a lane with Splash Bongo Man who had been surprisingly chatty, “Are you leavin' already," she'd joked when he finally heaved his scrawny self outta the water. He'd nodded, then given her a crooked crazed grin, "Yeah. Now you have it all to yourself. Enjoy!”

Oh, she was glad he was gone! His manic splashing had worn her out and created neck wrongness.

“Rumor has it that you had run off with an Italian Count and were temporarily ensconced at his Umbrian Villa teaching English till you married, but this was contingent upon his mother’s approval till you were able to make perfect gnocchi.” Sandy is in top form this evening.


“How did you know?” PP jokes as DL stretches out on the bottom bench, sighing blissfully.

“Seriously though,” Sandy continues, “Did you have a wonderful trip? What was your most favorite thing you did?”
PP had to think about this for a moment; there were so many. “The pool adventure in Florence was fantastic!”
“Yeah?”

“Si, si. My sis found the pool and then found the bus route; something I don’t think I woulda done. Then we actually did it. Got on the bus. Found the pool. Signed away all our rights in Italian. Who knows what we signed!”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asks.
“Oh, you know how you visit someone’s club, like here at the Y for instance, and they make you sign some release form absolving them from all responsibility if you drown.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Well, I think this is what it was. Who knows. We didn’t speak Italian and all the beauteous women at the desk didn’t speak English so we just signed the forms and went our merry way into the waters.”


Sandy nods, serious.
“What else?” she asks.
Thinking, PP lights up. “You know, you travel a lot. It’s the things that you stumble upon that are the best. Like the cats at Largo Argentina ruins.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the Roman SPCA. There’re these ruins in the middle of Rome, near the Parthenon neighborhood-- you know it?”
“Sure,” Sand nods, listening intently.



“And on our walk back from the Parthenon, we see these columns sprouting up in the middle of a square and then I see a cat. And then another cat. And then I look down into the ruins, and there are LOTS of cats. And then I go down these stairs, and it’s CAT Sanctuary Roman style with Roman Cat ladies trying to get you to adopt a cat to take back to Oakland with you.”


“You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
“Like there aren’t already enough cats here,” Sandy snorts.
“I know. “

“Though I suppose those Roman Cats would be Tough Guys, eh? No collars for those Roman Cats. Unlike the pampered cats here in the States.” Sandy chuckles demonically.


“Hey, you’re right,” PP giggles, eying DL who’s starting to sit up, readying herself to leave the sauna. PP imagines that DL can’t drag herself away from the Roman v. US Cat Collar Conversation, but maybe she’s just dizzy and moving slowly.

“No collars on those Roman Cats! I never thought of that!” PP grins.
Sandy nods, then takes on a gravelly Tough Guy Cat Voice: “What you doin'? No collar for me Bro!” She laughs, suddenly embarrassed. “Actually that sounded a little too Oakland, but you know what I mean.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re absolutely right!” PP nods. "I wonder if the Italian Count has any cats at his Villa in Umbria? And if he does, do you think they'd be collared or not?"



Sandy thinks for a moment before replying, "It'd be up to his Mother. They have all the power."
"Yes, that's true," PP concurs. "If she said the cats need collars, then they'd have them. And if she decreed no collars, then that would be law."

Opening the door to the sauna to let herself out, DL sighs, "Va beni!" she sings softly, before floating out of the sauna, leaving PP and Sandy to grin in her wake.



(http://gelsihouse.com)

Le Tone Françoise

“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

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

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

“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

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

“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

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

“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!

“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!

“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

“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

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.