The pumpkin cheesecake was good but would have benefited from more pumpkin. Like some of the 3/4 of a can I still have left, mysterious and with a strange glow about it, in my fridge. I suppose I could make pumpkin soup.
The glaze never did re-solidify. It squelched and ran all over the place. And was sticky. But tasty! And the colour was correct: orangey brown. That’s the right colour for a pumpkin cheesecake.
My left wrist is inexplicably stained with what looks like oil or the contents of a black ballpoint pen. Let’s see: I spent 40 minutes in the pool, 10 in the car and the last 15 doing the dishes. Nope, no black sludge in any of those places.
I am trying new pools and today’s was not my favourite.
Last Thursday I tried the first new pool and it was good: nice and old (I like them old because there are less buff, scary people at the old ones) and dark. Not too much chlorine and hardly any people. Of course, it was 9 am. At 9:30, an Aquafit class started, kicking off with Enrique Inglesias (it wasn’t “Don’t Turn out the LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” but that was OK). Of course, I stayed and pretended to swim more, just so I could watch the bizarre scene which is 30 middle aged women bouncing around in unison to very loud pop music. (And then the Chemical Brothers played. And then Platinum Blonde!) The showers were kind of small and poorly positioned and the changeroom was very cramped, but overall it was a nice pool.
Today’s pool is very new, very fleh. It’s an “integrated” pool. You can wade in to the family area, then scoot over to the laps area. There were the usual three sections for laps: Slow, Medium and Fast. I always swim Medium. That part was mostly good; it was a little bit too warm for me, but again, not too many people (again, 9 am) and hardly any chlorine. Then I swam my second lap and was blinded by the sun coming in the glass roof. Not so good. Then the fast lane was shut down so there could be Aquafit and all the fast, cranky people came into the Medium lane. Aquafit happened right next to the Medium lane and, while this was entertaining for a bit, it became more like The Perfect Storm had broken after a few minutes. Wavy, in other words. And the music wasn’t as good. “Beat It”? C’mon. It’s not aerobics, it’s Aquafit!
Plus, both ends of the pool are shallow enough to stand up in. For some reason, this bothered me. I don’t go to a pool to walk around. I go to a pool to feel like I might drown. That’s the impetus for swimming. Sink or Swim.
There was a man I thought was sinking, but he was just doing his own calisthenics under water. I have no idea if he could hear Beat It! or not, but he was doing some weirdypants movements way down there. He was very short, which, I guess, is how he could do all that without touching the bottom.
I remembered to think about when the Aquafit class might end and to get out of the pool and into the shower before the cool-down music started because nothing is worse than four showers and 35 women trying to use them. Ick. The people who told me that this particular pool was gross because there was hair everywhere were right: there is. That doesn’t bother me so much. What did bother me is that they use a “token” system for their lockers. You get a token from the reception girl for 35 cents. (You need to know this before you get to the changeroom. I was half undressed before I realized I needed a token because even though I told the reception girl it was my first time there, she didn’t tell me. But I digress.) So, great. No quarters, no muss, no fuss. But you don’t get the token back! When you unlock the locker, you get your stuff back, but the token stays in the locker. And your 35 cents stays with the reception desk. And you’ve now paid, um, $4.85 (which is already 70 cents more than every other rec. centre in this city) plus 35 cents for the privilege of bad music, sun in your eyes and 2 crummy lanes to swim in that aren’t even deep enough to inspire fear! Now, at the pool on Thursday, the locker didn’t give me my quarter back. But I think it really meant to – it was just a mistake. These new fangled pools and their complicated fleh. Screw ’em.
On Thursday, I will try pool # 3. It is my mother’s favourite pool so maybe that’s the one for me, too.
And so.