Coping Mechanisms for the Armpit of January: The Family Swim
I'm lucky that my husband pitched in yesterday to compensate for my domestic worthlessness. I felt like crap for the rest of the day after my bad trail run; my stomach was amiss and I couldn't focus on anything. If I tried to read, I fell asleep, so I did the rare thing and watched the Cooking Channel.
But today we decided to hit the fancy pool in Cuyahoga Falls. This is the swanky place with 0 foot entry fountain pools, a lazy river, tubular slides for the kids and a full size Olympic pool for swimming laps for Mom. It's the bomb, but the total opposite of the inner city pool I go to during the week. It's like comparing trail running with a crowded road race with oodles of crowd support. This place reminds me of a giant habitrail terrarium for spoiled hamsters. We brought the kids and my daughter's girl friend. I took the girls into the woman's locker room. We usually do one of the family changing rooms, but since we had the friend it was to my daughter's first exposure to a crowded locker room of naked women. I had my bathing suit on under my clothes to avoid nakedness with strangers. My daughter said, "But where am I supposed to get dressed?" Well...right here! In one glance you could witness a glut of dangling breast flesh of various cup sizes and nipple diameter. She looked horrified, so I instinctively knew she inherited her mother's extreme body modesty in front of other woman. So, I told her she could get dressed behind the flimsy shower curtain and be spared this immodest display of womanhood.
While waiting for the girls to get dressed and keep my eyes from honing on yet more breast flesh, or worse--the burgeoning butt flesh of older woman, I hopped on the doctor's scale gauge the damage of the Christmas season. I was up three pounds. Shit! I knew it! I can always tell by the clothes. I was feeling a tad bad about myself till I walked out into the pool area and was surrounded by the collective white jiggling flesh of winter Ohioans frolicking in the water. OK...I'm not that bad after all!
The girls were having a blast. They reminded me of light little rainbow striped fish darting through the water in their swim goggles and striped suits. I thought for sure I could get my daughter down the tubular water slide. It's a blast...fast and furious round the corners but dumps you at the delta in a smooth gentle way. I thought I had her talked into going down with me, but she chickened out...again. I find this interesting about my near 9 year old daughter and made me happy too, to know that she is a blend of her parent's best features. She's sociable like her mother, but not the experimenter or the risk-taker that I was. She's restrained like her father. I bobbed around the lazy river with the girls till an older large whale of man irritated me by thrusting his large body through the lazy river area casting a wake sufficient to splash chlorinated water into my unsuspecting, unprotected eyes. I headed off to the adult pool to swim 15 minutes of laps. I love doing laps here..the Natatorium has a large pool light that looks like a submarine is casting light through liquid blue crystal.
Then I played one of my favorite games where I pretend I don't know my husband; my husband was sitting in the hot tub that was crowded with people. I walked in as though I didn't know him and asked if I could sit by him. He just loves this and plays along with me. I chat him up like he's a stranger and I'm making polite small talk; I slither closer as I talk--then I make my move...I see if I can find anything swimming around in those trunks, cloaked as we are by churning warm water. Yet I got my hand slapped away, popping away the reverie like bubbles bursting, exposing us for what we really are...married forever and the game is over. The spell is broken; he becomes the man I've been married to for 20 years. Public displays send him over the edge. The hot tub strangers lose interest.
Another favorite game I like to play is to people watch and create imaginary scenarios for them. I feel this is good practice if I ever get the notion to write a novel some day. I saw a group of fit older woman walk in as a group. They all wore similar solid print one-piece suits, goggles and swim caps. There were six of them; they paired two to a lap. They were beautiful swimmers with perfect, yet slower, technique. I fashioned them to be the grown-up proteges of Ester Williams; they are retired Olympic synchronized swimmers getting together for a little reunion. They have a room at the Sheraton. They go to Piatto after their Natatorium swims. They giggle and tell old locker room stories... I realize I'm probably way off base with my scenarios about people, but it's entertaining.
The swim was nice--it smoothed out the gnarly knots of pain in my ankles. It's helped me to put my bad run into perspective. I still believe a bad run is better than no run at all. And I will be back on the trails, anew. Water is a rejuvenator.
I'm lucky that my husband pitched in yesterday to compensate for my domestic worthlessness. I felt like crap for the rest of the day after my bad trail run; my stomach was amiss and I couldn't focus on anything. If I tried to read, I fell asleep, so I did the rare thing and watched the Cooking Channel.
But today we decided to hit the fancy pool in Cuyahoga Falls. This is the swanky place with 0 foot entry fountain pools, a lazy river, tubular slides for the kids and a full size Olympic pool for swimming laps for Mom. It's the bomb, but the total opposite of the inner city pool I go to during the week. It's like comparing trail running with a crowded road race with oodles of crowd support. This place reminds me of a giant habitrail terrarium for spoiled hamsters. We brought the kids and my daughter's girl friend. I took the girls into the woman's locker room. We usually do one of the family changing rooms, but since we had the friend it was to my daughter's first exposure to a crowded locker room of naked women. I had my bathing suit on under my clothes to avoid nakedness with strangers. My daughter said, "But where am I supposed to get dressed?" Well...right here! In one glance you could witness a glut of dangling breast flesh of various cup sizes and nipple diameter. She looked horrified, so I instinctively knew she inherited her mother's extreme body modesty in front of other woman. So, I told her she could get dressed behind the flimsy shower curtain and be spared this immodest display of womanhood.
While waiting for the girls to get dressed and keep my eyes from honing on yet more breast flesh, or worse--the burgeoning butt flesh of older woman, I hopped on the doctor's scale gauge the damage of the Christmas season. I was up three pounds. Shit! I knew it! I can always tell by the clothes. I was feeling a tad bad about myself till I walked out into the pool area and was surrounded by the collective white jiggling flesh of winter Ohioans frolicking in the water. OK...I'm not that bad after all!
The girls were having a blast. They reminded me of light little rainbow striped fish darting through the water in their swim goggles and striped suits. I thought for sure I could get my daughter down the tubular water slide. It's a blast...fast and furious round the corners but dumps you at the delta in a smooth gentle way. I thought I had her talked into going down with me, but she chickened out...again. I find this interesting about my near 9 year old daughter and made me happy too, to know that she is a blend of her parent's best features. She's sociable like her mother, but not the experimenter or the risk-taker that I was. She's restrained like her father. I bobbed around the lazy river with the girls till an older large whale of man irritated me by thrusting his large body through the lazy river area casting a wake sufficient to splash chlorinated water into my unsuspecting, unprotected eyes. I headed off to the adult pool to swim 15 minutes of laps. I love doing laps here..the Natatorium has a large pool light that looks like a submarine is casting light through liquid blue crystal.
Then I played one of my favorite games where I pretend I don't know my husband; my husband was sitting in the hot tub that was crowded with people. I walked in as though I didn't know him and asked if I could sit by him. He just loves this and plays along with me. I chat him up like he's a stranger and I'm making polite small talk; I slither closer as I talk--then I make my move...I see if I can find anything swimming around in those trunks, cloaked as we are by churning warm water. Yet I got my hand slapped away, popping away the reverie like bubbles bursting, exposing us for what we really are...married forever and the game is over. The spell is broken; he becomes the man I've been married to for 20 years. Public displays send him over the edge. The hot tub strangers lose interest.
Another favorite game I like to play is to people watch and create imaginary scenarios for them. I feel this is good practice if I ever get the notion to write a novel some day. I saw a group of fit older woman walk in as a group. They all wore similar solid print one-piece suits, goggles and swim caps. There were six of them; they paired two to a lap. They were beautiful swimmers with perfect, yet slower, technique. I fashioned them to be the grown-up proteges of Ester Williams; they are retired Olympic synchronized swimmers getting together for a little reunion. They have a room at the Sheraton. They go to Piatto after their Natatorium swims. They giggle and tell old locker room stories... I realize I'm probably way off base with my scenarios about people, but it's entertaining.
The swim was nice--it smoothed out the gnarly knots of pain in my ankles. It's helped me to put my bad run into perspective. I still believe a bad run is better than no run at all. And I will be back on the trails, anew. Water is a rejuvenator.