Joy, Algaecide and Pee---

All the instructors for the YMCA exercise classes in the pool have different styles. Today was my first class with a woman who truly had a unique manner of leading senior citizens. I came home feeling like a cross between Floyd Mayweather and a Nordic ski champion. Yes, I spent an hour in the pool alternating boxing foot work and jabs with ski scissors and extensions. I got out the pool feeling like I could kick ass with the best of them and look outdoorsy healthy while I was doing it. No kidding, if I was younger I'd seriously think about hanging a punching bag in the garage and try jumping more than an imaginary rope in the deep end of the water while hanging from a pool noodle.

Hanging in a Easter egg colored noodle today, it briefly crossed my mind that those noodles are straddled by a lot of crotches but I figured that crotch kooties can't live long in water that is so strong with chemicals that a soapy shower can't wash their smell off my skin. And to think in my hay days I used to smell like Jean Patou's Joy perfume. "Jasmine, rose oils and other classic fragrances"---yes, so much better than the bouquet of chlorine, bromine and algaecide. Except for that brief moment of paranoia, I had a great time at my pool class today. All caregivers should sneak away in the wee hours of the morning to do something for her or his self. Remind me of that next winter when the Michigan snows are urging me to stay snuggled deep in my blankets.

Don started the afternoon out in the speech clinic waiting area the same way he has for the past few years: complaining to anyone who will listen to his aphasic tirade about a neglected plant that he wants someone to save from the sins of under fertilization and sporadic watering. It's not for lack of trying that he hasn't been able to convince someone to cut the thing back and give it a new start.

After the class, we were suppose to go out for dinner with four other couples---we go the first Thursday of every month---but Don had a run-in with his urine bottle before leaving the college and I was lucky enough to catch one of the other couples in the parking lot so I didn't have to go all the way the restaurant to let them know that we wouldn't be dining with them. The spouse of Don's classmate told me to just blot Don off, spray some perfume on him and go anyway. I thought about it. I really did. But at what point do you start throwing away a person's dignity? So I trusted my better judgment, took Don home, stopping for take-out oriental along the way. It was a good decision. By the time we got home he smelled a little ripe. Memo: start carrying an extra set of clothing in the car.

Jean Riva ©