I can read on the train home.

Reading is so marvellous on a sunny beach with the thundering of the ocean waves, though. Don't get me wrong, I love being in the ocean, but it has to be very warm both in the water and out. Not even Jamaica makes the par every time. I only made it into the water once last time I took a beach vacation there. But I spent a fair amount of time either fully dressed sitting on the beach reading, or sitting half in the pool reading. Where I could still hear the ocean.

A&E showed a marathon of the first CM episodes and they were all such cuties. Shemar in a suit, Thomas Gibson with floppy hair, dolls.

I need to rewatch those. I love the show now, but the first episodes were tainted by my resentment that The Inside had been cancelled.

My dad taught me and my brother how to swim. My mother was deathly afraid of the water, and didn't want us near it, but my dad put his foot down. I still remember how he would move out a few feet and say "swim to me", and then sloooooooowly move back. I remember when I looked up and realized that I was in the DEEP END and panicked, and my daddy saved me. :)

The CM crew really love Reid. They pushed him hard on the audience in those beginning eps. They don't push him as hard now, but he does tend to get the big trauma episodes, what with the drug addiction, etc.

My mother can't/doesn't swim, but did a fair amount in not transmitting that to us--in fact she helped teach us. She's good with the theory, but easily scared by the water.

I'm so glad they're safe, Cash. My mother is terrified of water and can't swim, partly because her mother was also scared of water and didn't want any of her children in it. My mother, on the other hand, made sure we took swimming lessons, because she didn't want us to have the same fear and she knew that she couldn't save us.

Even though I could swim, I came close to drowning once in a pool when I was 7 or 8. I was walking from the shallow end, and when I hit the part that was over my nose, I couldn't make the transition to swimming and I couldn't get my footing to get back to shallow water, so I ended up bobbing up and down and breathing in water. I remember how helpless I felt. Fortunately, the pool lifeguard spotted me.

CM is one of the few shows that I think has gotten better over time.

(Dear Cashmere, that wasn't a PARENTFAIL. Your children are safe because you and your family were scrutinizing every inch of their play and, as children will, they tested you. You passed the test; they're alive. Please don't beat yourself up. You're one of the sanest, loving mommies I know.)

java is wise.

Also, I was really traumatized by swimming lessons when I was a kid. I don't know why. But seriously, screaming and crying and mom pushing me through the door and the whole bit. I'm sorry mom!

And then later, I was totally fine. And I was fine with water, and beaches and whatnot. It was just the actual lesson in the pool I objected to. No clue why.

Bob Dylan detained by police who don't recognize him and think he might have wandered away from a psychiatric hospital. [link]

Kids have an amazing talent for finding the one unseen drop-off around. Still, that's why we have grown-ups (well, that and paying for Ben & Jerry's visits)—as Cashmere and co. proved.

I grew up near Lake Huron. Beautiful sandy beaches and lake bottom in my area. I learned to swim fairly young, and I've loved it ever since. But yeah, the lakes around here are mud-bottomed puddles of orange water. Not too appealing.

I really only like pools, but rivers and creeks with a current will do ok if I stay on the edge or am in a tube. I'm really not a fan of living things in the water other than people.

It's hot. We've walked too much. And mac's playdate of bowling did not go on long enough, so despite my promise to myself, I have brought a friend of his here and they are watching tv for an hour. please no bugs on him, please please please.

ita's aquatic wildlife concern, iirc, is lake whales.

Freshwater-able sharks! Of course this doesn't explain how I still am sort of scared that there can be sharks in swimming pools. I'm not sure why I think that.