Tag: swimming

Liquid Dreams

On the few occasions I buy water at a convenience store, I don’t think twice about downing the bottle I just paid two dollars for. Maybe you pay more or maybe you pay less, but I’m guessing the price doesn’t make you hesitate either. Even so, you could’ve gotten the same sixteen ounces for free out of your kitchen tap. That kind of thinking danced in my head last week when I reviewed a contractor’s bid for a new swimming pool in our backyard. I mean, it’s basically a divot filled with water.  How much could it possibly cost?

Like fancy cars and country clubs, I’ve just been reminded a pool earns the label of “luxury item”.  It’s a something you may want but definitely a something you don’t need.  The cost is just one of the reasons people flock to public pools instead of having one of their own.  But even public pools aren’t free. Maintenance. Insurance. Labor (lifeguards). The water itself.  The list goes on and on; the same costs you’d have with your own pool.  Okay, maybe not the lifeguards (unless my wife has visions of Baywatch studs in our backyard) but add it all up and pools are expensive with a capital E.

The contractor was more than happy to stop by our house last week for a look.  He loved the proposed location: flat, unobstructed, and right behind the back porch.  Then we debated the dimensions.  My wife wanted a lap lane for exercise, but just how long should a lap lane be?  Forty feet? Fifty feet?  Something to host the next Olympic Games?  Eventually we settled on fifty.  Then we added a “sun shelf” at one end for the grandchildren and a small patio at the other for an umbrella table and chairs.

Here’s where I got annoyed and suspicious (take your pick).  The whole time we’re talking, the pool contractor is doing nothing else besides talking.  He’s not sketching, he’s not measuring or taking notes, and he has no examples of what we’re looking for.  He’s just talking and nodding his head.  He did manage to find time to tell us how he likes to take his boat to the Bahamas several times a year (!) And before I could wrap my head around that he shook my hand with a hearty “Okay Dave! I’ll get you a quote by next week!”.

Well, “next week” is this week and I’m staring at a single page with a single number.  $89,750 without any bells or whistles.  Go ahead and gasp the way I did, as if you’re underwater in your new pool and can’t breathe (heh).  A few of you – those who already have pools – are nodding your heads and saying, “Yep, sounds about right, Dave.”  But now all I’m thinking about is how I’m helping this guy make his mortgage payments on his boat.  The quote is suspiciously vague as well; not even broken down into labor and materials.  My pool does come with a net and brush, a session of “pool school”, and an underwater light (“whoo-hoo”).  I also get a credit for “no diving board”, even though it doesn’t say for how much.

This experience reminds me of our last house, and a contractor who gave us a bid on a very large all-seasons deck.  We talked briefly while he stood on our lawn, gazing over to where the deck would go.  Then he held up his hands as if framing a painting.  After a few moments of silence he turned to us and simply said, “$200,000”.  Seriously?  Not only can you instantly estimate the cost of our new deck, but the number comes out to exactly $200k?  So I asked this guy for a more detailed quote and he said, “Yeah, no.  I am an artist (he pronounced it “ar-teest“).  People pay good money for my work”.  Yeah, not these people pal.

Our community has a small pool, sized to somewhere between soaking and short laps.  Really short laps.  My wife will take two or three strokes before having to think about her flip move to head the other way.  She’ll burn more calories switching directions than she will the swimming itself.  But hey, at least we won’t have to worry about the maintenance and insurance (or the mortgage payments on someone else’s boat).  For now at least, our pool will remain a liquid dream.

The Times of Sand

I’ve often thought the airport is the best place to people-watch. With downtime while you wait for your flight and the close proximity to others, it’s inevitable you’re going to look around. Every kind of person can be found at the airport (sporting every size, shape, fashion statement, stress level, and age). Travelers are unknowingly entertaining to those who watch them. But today let’s explore perhaps an even better venue where people do their thing: the beach.

As I type today, a sweeping look at the sandy shore beyond my patio shows me (in no particular order): A mother and daughter in animated conversation with a lifeguard; a group of teenagers (male) playing an aggressive form of beach four-square called Spikeball; another group of teenagers (female) sprawled on beach towels in giggly conversation; a father dragging his young son through the shallow waves on a boogie-board; a surfer wiping out in the not-so-shallow waves further out; and an ambitious child shoveling dirt out of a divot of sand as if digging to China.

I look away for a second and then look again: A pack of aggressive seagulls pecking away at someone’s leftovers aside their abandoned beach chair; that same lifeguard sprinting into the water to rescue a struggling swimmer; an older couple having a (clearly) not-so-happy conversation at the water’s edge; a jogger attempting to put in the miles while dodging the less active in his way; and a paused beach volleyball game where the players can’t determine if the ball hit the (sand) line or not.

It’s a rare treat when I can create a blog post from the goings-on on right in front of me, but the beach allows me to do just that.  More to today’s point, an active beach like this one changes character throughout the day.  In other words, there are the sands of time and then there are the times of sand:

  • Dawn: Seagulls, sand, and surf.  The beach at its most peaceful and pristine.
  • Early morning: Serious runners at the shore (unlike the casual joggers later in the day); an Asian elder performing a standing form of meditative yoga; a surf camp for pre-teens to the north; a lifeguard training camp for teens to the south; a pickup truck clearing the trash from the evenly-spaced cans.
  • Mid-morning: The gradual arrival of the masses (and all they bring with them).  Also the arrival of the lifeguards, with bright cones marking the “no-man’s land” for emergency vehicles, flags indicating the adjacent street number so people know where to find you, and more flags to mark the beach’s “surf zone” versus “swim zone”.
  • Midday: Everything I observed at the start of this post (and so much more).
  • Mid-afternoon: The gradual departure of the masses, and (hopefully) all they brought with them.  Also the departure of the lifeguards, signing off with a megaphone farewell to those who remain behind.
  • Early evening: The ritual of the sun-worshippers, who simply must remain behind to witness the (West Coast) sunset.  There’s nothing like a setting sun to bring a person to a focused standstill.
  • Dark: An umbrella of stars, a rhythmic ribbon of white foam as the waves crash to shore, and an occasional party of two out for a romantic stroll at the water’s edge.

Trust me, it’s easy to be mesmerized by the times of sand if you watch them long enough.  They’re the reason I never make progress with my latest “summer read”, and the reason I can abandon my electronic devices for hours at a time.  Frankly, it’s a wonder I was able to turn away from the sands long enough to bring you this blog post today.