Swimming for us was lessons at the local hotel pool (first at the Hotel Rossi then at the HoJo's) which both of our parents supported. Dad had grown up going to public schools big enough to have their own pools, so he knew how to swim as a kid even though he grew up on a farm. Mom was another farm kid, but went to Catholic schools without a pool so she never learned how, at least not until she was in her early '40s and we belonged to the Y. She still doesn't swim well (she can barely stitch together three front strokes with her face in the water before she comes up sputtering), but the fact that she can put her face in the water is a huge thing for her.
It was a special event for us to go to a place with natural swimming water (not a pool), either Lake Michigan on occasional summer drives to the city, a family vacation up to Minnesota or Michigan, or a weekend visit to the Braidwood Country Club, where some of my stepmother's family belonged. (A Pakistani friend of mine in high school had to be smuggled into the Braidwood club in the trunk of his friend's car due to the color of his skin. Mom didn't belong there for that reason.)
We've discussed the civet-poop coffee around here a bunch of times, but as far as I recall, never from the perspective of OMGSOCUTE!!!1!
My mom used to love telling how she learned how to swim in General Patton's pool. She would jump in and there was always someone there to get her out and work on teaching her how to swim.
Sophia, I saw this and thought of you putting together your bookshelves this weekend!
Brenda, did Nicole reach you?
No shame, msbelle. Shit happens. (Which I realize is easy for me to say, but still true.)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, lose your nuts.
That's been my motto for years.
well sure Jesse, but it's hard to be the deliver of the news and not as an outsider messenger, but as the only one they know affected at this point. People start freaking out about their home values and equity. heavy shit man.
I am actually making decent progress today which is good. Still have no real plan for clearing out stuff. I think as I open up bags for treatment I need to clear out at least 1/3 of each.
Vick needs to be a loudly obnoxious End Dog Fighting activist for me to begin to take his apology seriously.
I want him as un-shut-up-able as an omnisexual college freshman feminist vegan nader-voting socialist communist virgin lefty raised by Baptist Mormon Jehovah's Witness Jews for Jesus radical veiled Muslims.
Light saber chopsticks! [link]
