Did you hear the one about the swim geek that took a four month maternity leave from the pool? Well, she went back to the Y at 6 A.M. today to swim. She put on her suit and cap, took a shower, and headed for the pool. The door to the pool was locked. So she dried off, got dressed again, and went to look at the pool through the windows in the hall. Dark. No water. The pool was full of scaffolding. Closed until September 11th.

The moral of the story? Get you own pool. Or get a friend with a pool.

So, after that embarrassing scenario, I was more than excited to go to my friend Fara’s pool this afternoon. Fara makes it a pool party every time we stop by, which we try to make weekly in the summer time. They just opened their pool last week, so the party’s just getting started.

I met Fara back in ’98 when our kids were in elementary school together. She was the treasurer of the PTO, and I was the Vice President. Today she also invited Theresa, our President the year we built the new playground at the school.

Fara and Theresa are not afraid to get in the pool to swim, and both of them liked holding Chanya, so I could, too.

Oh yeah, there were kids there, too. Fara invites us, and then opens the pool to her neighborhood kids, too. The highlight is usually the diving competition. Today it was more a diving lesson for me. It’s fun tricking the kids into being swim geeks if only for an afternoon.