Two days into my July-non-vacation and it’s already the
weekend. Yesterday’s build up of work
stress can get relegated elsewhere for the next 48 hours. But this isn’t just any weekend, it’s July 4th
weekend! That means grilling, chilling,
general fun summer stuff and celebrating our great nation – the U.S.A.
So as ‘Merica gets into Independence Day mode, and prepares
for its 240th birthday party (what’s the popular gift for 240 year-olds
these days??), I will go to work. And it’s
sad and borderline embarrassing to tell people that you have to work on our biggest
national holiday, and it’s not because you work in an Emergency Room or at air
traffic control, or some other place that needs to be 100% operational
24-7-365, but it’s because you work on spreadsheets. Yeah.
I have some very good Fourth of July memories (of not
working) and I get worried that my kids won’t have the same if I have to work
this holiday each year. But maybe I get
ahead of myself and just overthink it. I
have to remind myself that 1. They are still young, and the little one is
asleep before nightfall in July 2. Fireworks would probably scare the shizzles
out of the kids for a few more years (maybe), fireworks basically give my cats
PTSD so we can probably still hold off on that a bit 3. When I was their age,
there was no New York City ban on fireworks and the streets were literally on
fire 4. You don’t know how to grill. So
what were these great Fourth memories again?
Time paints a rose-hued lens on what was more or less patriotic
tomfoolery.
So here’s something to build good summertime memories
despite having to work on the Fourth: we went swimming. Our town pool (which technically serves three
towns) is great. At least when we first
joined, I was in awe. Some of the Co-op
apartments we had looked at (before we found our house) advertise the pool and
the adjoining golf and tennis area as part of the selling point of the
Co-ops. It’s like a country club,
without the fees of a country club. You
can join based on residency, not based on who you know and do they like you.
The longer I’ve been going to this pool, the more I’m
getting familiar with the lay of the land and who is in charge of whom at the
Mecca of Seventh Borough Summertime: The Town Pool. And I say town pool, but I really mean
poolS. There are 5 pools, and 4 of them
are somehow kind of built into a hill.
As you come through the gate, you have the Granny pool on your immediate
right and the snack bar is to the left.
The Snack bar is mainly staffed by 12 year-olds and managed by 14
year-olds. If you make it through food
service, you can drive a golf cart at 15 and become a lifeguard at 16 and
really move up the ranks. I’m not sure,
but I’d guess the three or four adults who are actually in charge are
School-year phys ed teachers picking up a summer gig. They all carry clipboards and wear matching polo
shirts. The kids who seem like they’d
rather be anywhere else but the pool all tend to have the job of setting up and
breaking down the lounge chairs. That
looks like a crummy job. None of those
kids look happy even though sometimes they get tipped for bringing chairs. Lastly, there are the shuttle drivers who
drive the ‘trolley’ around the parking lot, because while the parking lot may
not look so big, when you’re schlepping a bag full of damp towels and two tired
children around, it’s a Godsend. The ‘trolley’
is like a very long golf cart. It’s the
super stretch limo of golf carts. I
swear sometimes we go to the pool just to ride the ‘trolley’.
Opposite the snack bar is the Granny Pool, which is strictly
for adults, and by adults I mean you have to be 18 to swim there, so there is
no ‘Adult Swim’ time, the Granny Pool is Adult Swim all the time. And even though a 19 year-old would surely be
welcome at the Granny pool, the average age of swimmers at that pool is 75.
Passing the Granny pool, if you sort of go down a hill and
then up a hill, you will find yourself at the Diving Pool. The Diving Pool has two springboards and is
13 feet deep. The Diving Pool is frequented
by the 10-13 year-old set, but sometimes I get on line for the springboard
myself and take the plunge. Down yet
another hill or like two flights of stairs, depending how you go, are the baby
pools. One pool starts at six inches and
slopes down to about 18 inches. In the
shallow side of the pool you won’t find kids playing splish splash. You’ll find all the moms and dads lounging as
if it were a swim-up bar while the tots are mostly in the adjacent playground
or the other baby pool, which has like a million sprinklers attached to
it. I mean, it’s probably 5 sprinklers,
but there is not a corner of that pool you can stay sprinkler free in, trust
me, I’ve tried. This pool tends to lose
interest with 5 years and up crowd.
Finally, at the bottom of the last hill, is the large 4
foot-deep ‘Olympic Size’ pool with laps lanes and basketball hoops. This is really where it’s at. Each time we go to the pool, I stand on the top
of the hill and ask the kids which pool do they want to go to today, and
without fail, it’s the big ‘Olympic’ pool at the way bottom of the hill. And this pool is like an evil mirage because
it looks so much closer than it is, and ten minutes later, you finally get
there (Fifteen minutes if the kids have to stop and take stock of everyone else’s
floaties and water toys) and you wish the trolley could transport you from one
pool to the next, but given the sloping of the pool decks, a ski lift would be
more appropriate.
And once we’re in the pool it’s like the most fun in the
world, and they love it, and I try to get them to work on swim strokes and they
ignore me, because just holding on to your mom is way more fun than swimming on
your own. But they’ll get there, and
skills increase and fear subsides (Kate actually has zero fear, despite having basically
zero swimming skills). Nick practises
his cannonballs and Kate practises inhaling less water than before. And hopefully they will gain a love of the
water and build good memories of summertime at the pool.
