My Blue Heaven and Rhubarb Pie

See this? This is perfection. This is an empty laps lane and why am I taking this picture when I could be in that cool lagoon . . .

I did get some laps in this morning. Only had to share with two messy swimmers. Messy swimmers flop and splash a lot. They attack the water instead of going with the water. They did 30 minutes of intensive swimming and I loped along for the full 60 minutes. I suppose the same energy gets expelled with the two different methods. I just want the pain to last longer.

And how did I get in morning laps on a Monday morning when I am usually cooking up scrambled eggs for the grandchildren? The grandchildren are somewhere else today! Well, I do need to pick up the little beast at 4:00 from the "other babysitter." Gretchen also sits for three baby boys, two are nine-month-old twins. I fear that these boys will grow up with an innate fear for the opposite gender. Cameron can be a terror if they mess with her stuff. Stay out of my tea set and I'll let you keep your hair!

I now plan to attack the bottomless rhubarb bag. Dave has a friend at work who had the nerve to purchase an acreage with fruit trees. rhubarb and other naturals that require a lot of preparation before consumption. And she doesn't cook. I wish I had made that clear at the beginning of Dave and I that I do not cook. I have known other women who have said this and their families thrive just fine. But I did not. I cooked lasagna for him one Tuesday night fourteen years ago and he never left. This woman gives me rhubarb in a bag heavy enough to choke a Clydesdale and I can never get rid of it. I push it to the back of my fridge and put a watermelon in front of it but sooner or later we eat the watermelon and then there it is. Calling me: wash me, chop me, cover me with sugar, stuff me in a pie crust and then spend an hour cleaning up your sticky kitchen. Every time I go to look in it the rhubarb it has magically multiplied and it is still crisp and red and juicy. It is rhubarb from another dimension and I accidentally invited my father to supper so rhubarb will be in my life today. My mother was a chef of excellent qualifications - one who can taste the stew and tell you exactly what five herbs will make the meat sing from the pot. I keep adding and adding: garlic, bouillon, onion, beer, tomato paste, pepper, red wine, Italian seasoning until the stew doesn't resemble what its original ingredients set it out to be. No one ever wants a second helping and a lot of bread gets consumed at my meals. Mom's pies were delicate and fruity and smelled like home on a wintry afternoon. My pie will not be in that category but Dad will not complain. He is happy he does not need to eat the leftover TV dinner chicken he had planned on.

Sunday at the pool and other places . . .

My escorts to the Mud Lake BlueGrass festival: Cowboy Dave and Crazy Tom. Lookin' good, fellas, lookin' good . . .

My house has become my enemy. It is hopelessly messy. Before Mom's death I had to admit that this condition was directly related to laziness on my part. After Mom's death I can comfortably say my grief is interfering with my ability to do simple chores but I know that it is actually laziness once again.

We are going to Mud Lake (couldn't they have come up with a prettier name?) with a friend to hear the bluegrass festival. I have already informed Dave that Tom cannot enter the house due to its sloppy condition. He thinks I'm kidding, but I'm not . . .

My mother always said that I was happiest in the water. As a young person I rode my bike daily to the pool. After swimming I would buy a nickel bag of popcorn and a nickel vanilla cone and dip said cone in the popcorn. On weekends I and my cousins and siblings splashed delightedly in the lake where my grandmother had her sons build a cottage for all the grandchildren. I lived on fried baloney sandwiches and peanut butter rice krispie bars and my uncle's burnt popcorn around the campfire at night. We would explore the banks of Catfish Creek rambling through the countryside, its mouth the Mississippi and collect crawdads, Indian beads and rocks of various color and texture. We dutifully glued them onto to poster board and wrote their names below as we scoured our rock books. Unequivocally, the best times of my life.

To this day I look forward to long hot showers with water streaming down me and the privacy of the shower stall like my little cocoon. If I am bathing I refill the tub several times with hot water when I begin to chill. I am a water person. I do not sit sunning myself next to any body of water. I am in the water.

Yesterday was dark and dangerous following storms that resulted in severe flooding to all the little towns in Iowa situated along its mighty rivers, the Mississippi and the Maquoketa. I love all the Indian names but they sometimes leave my tongue twisted.

I decided to give the pool a chance banking on that most people would be afraid to be around any form of water even a contained pool. Only 31 of us dared to dip on this cloudy and dreary day. There were ribbons of light running through the gray clouds and only a few splatters of water on the surface. Heavenly with just myself in the laps lane and only a few screaming children.

Today has blue skies and billowing cloud banks. I enter the chilly water and swim towards the laps lane only to find a bag of unusual equipment perched on the side. Hm-m-m, doesn't look like lifeguard stuff. And then he is there. A muscled young man in his early 30's with a pleasant face and smile. He is strapping some of this equipment on himself. Whoa, I say,what are those? They are yellow pieces of plastic with holes drilled through them - kind of like Freddy Kruger's mask. "Hand paddles," he says, "doubles the resistance of the water." I'm impressed. There is also a strange-looking scuba device that wraps around his head and a piece of styrofoam that nestles against his crotch and is held in place by his thighs. I did not ask about that. And he has colorful flippers to propel him. In the water he resembles a machine with plastic parts churning and foaming towards me. At the end of the lane he somersaults - a word on the bottom of his purple shorts. I don't know what it is and I do not want to stare. I enter the water unencumbered as even my earrings are left at home. Flipper churns and foams for about ten minutes. During this time Silver Surfer has come onto the scene and she - hah! - doesn't come in the laps lane but stays on the other side of the rope where she has to dodge the walkers. And there are quite a few walkers looming on the horizon like buffalo crossing and recrossing the watery plain. Shortly after her appearance, Flipper tries to get her attention as he is leaving. She's kind of hard of hearing, I tell him. "Tell her I am done," he says. Now what do I do. I guess I can be neighborly even to an elitist. I try to keep up with her my finger poised above her moving body. I touch her. I tell her Flipper is done and she thanks me. We speak no more as we are not sociable swimmers and we are comfortable with that. She stays 30 minutes. Blue Bomber comes on the scene with her blue suit and blue Speedo cap. She is always friendly and we chat briefly and then she is off for her laps. She is another somersaulter at the end of her lane. I cannot tolerate water in my nose anymore. Too many years of smoking and antihistamine medication has left my sinus cavities in a delicate condition. Any small amount of water in that area turns me into a gasping, choking fool. If I need to go under water my fingers pinch my nose shut like any respectable five-year-old must do. Bomber is a heavily, padded woman but I can see where her swimming has left tone and muscle here and there. Her movements are precise and rhythmical. She is beautiful to watch.

The day is lovely and I watch the eagles and turkey vultures floating high above me. Gulls are screeching and the Harleys are roaring as everyone wants to be near the river. I see the cyclists on the floodwall and I think of my brother out on his bike inspecting the swollen creek and river beds. His exercise obsession is actually more intense than my own and he has an enlarged heart muscle to prove it.

I time myself: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three etc; and I'm doing 28 - 28.5 seconds per one way lap. Sixty-five minutes of swimming - you do the math. Okay, I touch briefly with my feet at the end of the lane but I am a swim goddess amongst buffalo and screaming children.

Vegetarian chili

I am eating vegetarian chili I had frozen from the hospital cafeteria while Mom was still a patient. I'm eating something that feels like a hair and I think it may a fiber from one of the many vegetables, or, a hair. I have come back from the north end pool with more water in my ears irritating my already irritated sinuses. This swimming project has a couple of drawbacks.
I am a silent and sullen swimmer. I walk into the shallow end and plow through the increasing deeper waters until I reach the laps lane. It is sectioned off from the diving area and the swimming area and it is approximately six feet wide which is inadequate but at least it exists. There is a foot-wide dark ribbon painted on the floor in the middle of the lane and if there is a solitary swimmer she may use the ribbon as a guide as she swims across the pool. If there are two swimmers they can easily stay on one side of the ribbon or the other and maintain an easy separation that promotes good swimming. This works well if one or both swimmers like to do the crawl and when the pool side is reached they dive under the water performing a somersault and surfacing in the same lane as before. If there are more than two swimmers the oval orbit pattern is the best choice. The swimmers continue in an endless loop traveling down one side of the ribbon to the opposite end and returning on the other side of the ribbon and so on and so on. Sounds easy? Well, it's not. Why? Because every swimmer who enters the laps lane believes that she should be the ONLY lap swimmer in the lane. Like so many other situations in life a class system exists here. I do not totally understand as my experience is slight but I will report on what I know at this time. There are many kinds of swimmers. At any given pool the two most respected classes are the fancy divers - the high dive, of course - and the lap swimmers. We will concentrate on the lap swimmers at this time. The most basic ability level consists of half-swimmer/ half water walker. She swims 10-20 feet and then touches bottom and walks for the rest of the lap. She rarely goes under water preferring to remain on the surface to better watch the numerous social combinations occurring around the pool. She doesn't have the strength to swim an entire lap and she may remain in the lap lane for a small amount of time - rarely more than 10-15 minutes. There are exceptions, of course. These people usually have come to the pool with a group of others and they have excused themselves from that group to do laps. Occasionally, one of their group will travel along with them on the other side of the rope so she will not lose the social connection. The middle level consists of lap swimmers who are able to complete several laps at a time without stopping. The number can range from five to twenty on the average. They are not speedy swimmers but they believe in consistency and duration and like the tortoise, are capable of winning the race. They may prefer more than one swimming form. I am in this group and I prefer breast stroke with occasional back stroke and side stroke to rest my neck muscles as I do not like to put my head underwater. It tastes bad, people do pee in it, the smell is strong and my throat, eyes and nose object. Not to mention the great number of people walking around with the most God-awful open sores. Just go ahead and count how many band-aids are floating around. The last and most formidable group are the true swimmers. They usually wear goggles and caps. They may use timing devices and they have large water bottles at the edge of the pool for immediate hydration. Amazingly, they come in all shapes and sizes. You would think that these strong, long-distance swimmers would develop sleek, muscled bodies but this is often not the case. They swim long stretches of laps usually with faces under the water for the majority of the time. This limits their ability to see other swimmers in the laps lane whether they be in front of them or on opposite sides. This does not seem to bother them as they are like large semi-trucks on the highway. As the trucks know they are the biggest dudes on the road this class of swimmers know they are the swiftest and strongest of the lot and woe be to anyone who gets in their way. They swim without rules, without morals and without consequences. They believe their superior ability has promoted them to a god-like status and no one can question their behavior in the water. Needless to say, I hate these people, but like the other small frogs in the pond I must quickly get out of their way and learn to swim around them and not with them. A pox on all of them, I say. May the next mouthful of pool water you accidentally swallow contain a strain of serious diarrhea parasites who drain your system of everything necessary and healthful.