Water - September, 2007

When you own a house, water is the bane of your existence. You need it where and when you want it. It needs to flow freely through your pipes, but not drip through your faucet. You want it in your sink, but not in your basement. You want it to fill your toilet tank and not cause corrosion and that annoying “the toilet is running” thing where just jiggling the handle really doesn’t solve the problem. You want it coming out cold from the icemaker, but you need to be vigilant for clumps, so make sure you work the thing every day, even when you don’t need ice. You run the dehumidifier in the summer and the humidifier in the winter, just to make sure your world is full of the right amount of moisture at all times.

You want the rain to flow gently into your gutters, not fighting with leaves or, God forbid, freezing on your roof in the winter, backing up into the phenomenon called “ice damming,” where it gets under the roof and freezes, only to melt and drip into your home through your sheetrock. Ah, but I am thinking ahead, aren’t I? And do I hear “gutter helmet” as a birthday gift?

Do I sound like I know far more about this issue than I should? Personal experiences aside, who among us hasn’t had a sump pump issue, water in the basement after a big storm, or a leaky pipe? If you have a pool, your issues are compounded by chemistry. Making it look like the pristine Caribbean doesn’t happen by chance. It’s a delicate balance between chlorine, alkaline and a host of other fatal-if-swallowed chemicals in white containers that confounds, confuses and bankrupts you. My formerly blue water today is pea green, despite the little robot guy sucking the crud off the bottom, and I haven’t even figured out how to heat the pool, no less cure it of this color transformation. So I have poured vats of chlorine into it, hit it with alkalinity rise (I confess I have no idea what that is) and followed all the chemical potions suggested by the pool guys. Apparently you even have to do something to “shock” the pool, which turns out to be adding a bunch of packages of more chemical stuff and not merely having me show up in a bathing suit, which I thought would surely be shocking enough. You have to get the pool closed for the winter and opened in the summer, and the same thing goes for the sprinkler system, which gets serviced twice a year. Let’s face it, if we took paid this much attention to our bodies, we’d all be in better shape.

But a leak doesn’t heal on its own. I can limp around for a while on a sore leg, knowing that eventually I’ll recover from whatever it is that ails me now, but the leak in my kitchen ceiling probably isn’t going to recover as quickly. The likely culprit, the shower above in the master bath, isn’t about to give way, but it also isn’t about to get better on its own. Exploratory surgery seems likely, followed by replacement parts and some cosmetic repairs. The house is only 20, but I guess “house years” apply, because at 20, I sure wasn’t leaking – yet.

So, yes, water is everywhere when you own a home, and, if you own a new home (new for you, but not necessarily new construction), it takes a while until you get to know each other well enough to identify your respective water issues. And, no, that is not a tear in my eye, it’s just a drip coming from…somewhere.

All Wet - October, 2008

I smell like chlorine. I admit it. So do my pool shoes, towels and bathing suit. It is inescapable, and it will continue, because, after a summer of enjoying my own pool and getting the pain out of my arthritic knee at last, I bit the chlorine bullet and joined the local racquetball/swim club.

I enrolled in the Aqua Aerobics class at the local club, a mere 2.5 miles from my house, close enough to get there without a legitimate excuse. Now, on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, you can find me in the pool, a youngster amid the gray-haired seniors. For once, I feel young and strong. The ladies are probably in better shape than I am, but all the more reason to haul my arthritic knees, plantar fasciitis-afflicted feet and the rest of my sorry state into the pool and bounce around for an hour, commiserating with people older and more afflicted than me.

So now I am rocking side to side, doing jumping jacks, playing with a noodle and special weights, all with the buoyancy of water to protect those deteriorating joints. Not that this experience is bereft of its own problems.

First, I just about need a bag with wheels to haul all my gear to the swim club. There’s the three pairs of shoes I need for each class – one pair of pool shoes (which never seem to dry; as the days get colder, I can no longer tell if they are wet or just cold), one pair of flip flops to help me avoid any possible foot contact with the locker room floor and the pair of shoes and socks I wear to and from the club. Second, I have to admit that just getting dressed is a challenge. You get out of the pool and travel through a cold corridor to the locker room. Naturally, everything there is wet, from you to the floor. The mere act of finding a way to keep my feet from touching the floor while drying them and putting on my socks without getting them wet requires a balancing act that could be part of the exercise program. Then I have to go home immediately after class to hang my wet gear out to dry. I can picture myself forgetting the damp mess in the bag in the trunk of the car as I go about my errands and finding the petrified, moldy remains months later.

For someone who has managed to avoid all forms of exercise for years, moving in the water is definitely preferable (and easier) than any more conventional exercise. I can’t imagine standing on one leg with the other leg pointed straight out to the front without picturing myself in a heap on the floor. Yet, even in the water, some things just don’t seem doable. Sure, the young instructor seems to have no trouble leaping straight up out of the water, all the way to her thighs. But for the rest of us, certain body parts have, shall we say, permanently migrated south. In this class you’ll see no space between the water and certain parts of our anatomy. Trust me, it’s not a pretty sight. Luckily, I remove my glasses during the class so I am not subjected to a perfect view of my companions. I hope for their sake that their sight is equally impaired.

I feel sorry for the swimmers doing laps who occupy the one or two remaining lanes while our class is in session. All that jumping up and down creates enough waves to surf on. Wait, is that a white cap? No, just a bathing cap.

A few of the women – a friendly and pleasant group – have recommended I take the “Silver Sneakers” class, an exercise class that somehow gets you to exercise but requires no jumping, thrusting, lunging or any other activity that would make me resemble someone of my own age or younger. Hey, I might be the only person there without a walker. At least I would be dry, not have to haul the linen and shoe closets with me to class and not worry about a wet bathing suit, right? To say nothing about the lingering aroma of au de chlorine.

One of the women recommended a local store which carries chlorine resistant bathing suits, a place called Swim and Sweat. Sounds like a place I’d never go, but chlorine resistant has a certain appeal these days.

Got to go now and put on some perfume. Anything that doesn’t smell like chlorine would be an improvement.