Observational Tidbits

I went to the pool yesterday, and after fortifying myself with water, ibuprofin for my ankle, and a few carbs, I managed my full hour. Yes, tired after, but not exhausted. Best part, no bugs chomping on me for as long as I lasted. (Yes, better, not gone, at home.)

I noted three different men at the pool. The first was perhaps fifty-ish, reasonably fit, and came with a woman I'll assume is his wife or partner. (These days if you're not already paired, there's that little hitch of social distancing.) Anyway, he arrived in tennis shoes. In order to take them off, he leaned against a pillar, standing on one leg, and struggled. I did note a handful of empty chairs nearby where he could have sat for the process, but.... Who was he trying to impress? Himself? Or might I have to rethink the relationship I presumed with his pool partner?

I noticed him again before he left, putting his shoes back on, sitting down in one of those chairs this time. Guess he got over himself. He'd only been sitting in the spa pool for about 10 minutes, so I doubted it was exhaustion.

Next, a bit later, was a portly gentleman with an amazing headfull of white hair, practically running his walking laps, even through the deeper water. How did he get the energy? Should I mentally congratulate him on his energy and stamina or wonder what he was taking these days? If I'm to last my full hour the pace is steady and somewhat slow. For the 20 or so minutes he was there, he lapped me three times.

The last man of note rolled in on a scooter, parking it about 3 feet from the steps into the walking pool. He looked to be approaching or into his 90s, and it was a very slow entrance to the pool, though he picked up his speed once in the water. I lapped him a few times, even though I noted he took a few shortcuts, using the breaks in the dividing walls separating the parts of the serpentine pattern laid out in the pool. I use those too, but these days only to move myself away from being either behind or ahead of a cluster of people going a different speed than I prefer and whose clustering prevents my distancing at safe levels. Sure, they're wearing masks since that's a requirement to use the pool, but that virus thing is all a hoax, doncha know. Get closer, I can't hear you.

The previous visit to the pool, I'd overheard bits of a cluster conversation about somebody who'd recovered from a mild dose of the virus but now had all kinds of medical problems and the doctors were trying to figure out what they all were and how to help him. Now if we could have combined those two clusters....

Irony could have been recognized? 

The center staff might have noticed people weren't social distancing as required?

Once this elderly gentleman climbed tortuously out of the pool (yeah, I've been there), he rode his scooter about 20 feet to the top of the stairs down into the spa pool. It occurred to me later that he'd not taken his required shower before entering the pool in the first place. Did anybody else notice? Care? With all the chlorine, did I even care?

I opened up this laptop this morning in preparation for blogging, stopping for a weather check first as I usually do. Wheee! Windows opened for a few minutes yet.

On the weather page are ads. Kinda like every other page, right? The one which caught my eye was captioned, "Realistic Game For Men Over 50." I might have been interested enough to check out what they thought they meant either by "realistic" or targeting the older demographic, since that would be both unique and long overdue, had I not seen the photo accompanying this claim. It showed a woman, of course. She wore enough clothing to let you know she wasn't completely naked, had a figure only available in fantasies, held a flaming snake wrapped around one arm, the other arm holding a staff with a winged dragon for its top, coincidentally also breathing a string of fire winding around behind her and over to the snake. The background looked like ancient Roman ruins before they became ruins, barely more than shadows lest they might distract from all the realism of the game.

I guess the (wood?) (metal?) part of the staff could be considered realistic? Kinda doubt that would be why any man might want to play that game, however.