Had to Get Away...

So I pulled a Bueller today.  I decided mid-morning that, given the choice of staying in Cubeland at Golden Handcuffs or heading home, napping with the dogs, and taking a swim in the condo pool (not, perhaps, quite as scenic as the one shown here in a fetching snap by dear Mr. Slim Aarons), and given that it is already the last week of summer, I really had no choice at all.  Off to the Metro it was.

And I really think it was the right choice.  I am going to have to be careful, for as a post-invalid, it's temptingly easy to assume a rather wan look, stare moodily into the middle distance, and within seconds have colleagues urging one to take good care, not overexert, get some rest... It's almost all too easy.

There's a lively mid-week scene at the pool, a mixed group of widows, sullen teens, and the building's resident Nice Young Couple, a pair whose means of earning a living is uncertain but whom I think of as The Enthusiasts.  They've already, in the scant year we've lived in the condo, gone through Salsa Dancing (complete with costumes), yoga, the paleo diet, and now, one learned, are heading into Hopi drumming.

"I've never been to a drum circle," observed one of the widows as she bobbed in the deep end, her broad sunhat dipping in the back into the water.

"Me, neither," said another. "We did go, once, to the Newport Folk Festival.  I liked it, but Morris said Joan Baez gave him hives."

"I don't like too much drumming," added a third.  After a long pause, she sighed, as if for the energy wasted on noisy percussion. "We went to a Hindu funeral. Lots of little lights everywhere.  Beautiful."

"Was there much drumming?" asked the first widow.

"What? Oh, no. None.  I was just trying to think what would be like a Hopi drum circle."

"Ah."

You always get some interesting information, chatting with the widows (at least once you get past hearing more of what Morris thought about Joan Baez, which led into digressions on Watergate, Vietnam, and how sad it is about Jimmy Carter).  Today it was Crimes in the Building, which have apparently included a murder (love triangle gone wrong), a drug raid (which was more a neighbors' feud), and a Ponzi scheme ("I didn't lose anything, but the Feldmans on the ninth floor fell for it hook, line, and sinker.").  Also, the story of the last fire before that one last December, a decade or so ago, which involved an old lady who had apparently not listened when told that smoking and oxygen tanks don't mix ("It was an awful mess - blew the windows right out.  We were lucky she wasn't on the pool side, or they'd have had to drain it - bits everywhere.").

Frankly, I'm tempted to stay home all week.  I'm afraid to think what I'd miss, now that pool season is ending...