Friday, August 20, 2010

Bathing Caps and Ice Cream Bars

The funniest things will bring back a memory.

I was just checking on my Etsy shop and popped in on the forums to see if there was any interesting dramas going on and one of the threads was a question about did your parents make you wait after eating to get back in the pool. Yeah, not an Etsy related question but down in the ETC section of the forums where usually the topics are scintillating threads about poop or something. You always feel like you are in middle school when you venture down there, lots of juvenile activity and really stupid stuff goes on there.

But this topic actually made me click on it and even respond.

Yes, we waited an hour after eating to get back in the pool because if you didn't YOU WOULD GET CRAMPS AND DROWN!!!! Or something like that.

While reading the thread I was transported back to the hot humid summer days in Maryland where we spent most of our summer up at the pool taking swimming lessons and eating ice cream from the snack bar (and then waiting an hour to get back in the pool). The webbed plastic lounge chairs with your damp towel spread across it so you wouldn't get those lines in the backs of your legs from the webbing or burn your skin because that plastic gets hot in the sun. And the bathing caps that all the girls and women had to wear into the pool, many with festive plastic flowers springing up on them, some that looked like you were wearing a garden on your head. Do people even wear those horrible rubber bathing caps anymore? I always hated how they muted all the sounds around you and you kind of listened to your own pulse while wearing one. Plus they smelled funny and ripped out your hair when you tried to pull it off of your head. I wanted to be a mermaid with my hair flowing around me in the water, not a chubby kid with my head covered by rubber.

Anyway, funny how one sentence can bring back such memories.

I talked to Keith for quite a while last night, he's planning on coming back from Vegas tonight depending on how things go today. His mom is getting a little better but definitely shows signs of her brain being not quite right with lots of confusion and being sweet as pie one minute and then not so sweet the next. She is supposed to be moved to a rehab hospital today for about a week or so and then the plan is to get her out of Vegas and moved to Ventura to either a care facility or Bruce's house. They had her sign papers yesterday so that Bruce will have power of attorney and can take care of any bills that need to be paid and can see exactly what her financial situation is, which isn't all that good. She is easily scammed and has spent thousands over the years trying to 'help' people out seeing it as her Christian Duty to help people, but being bilked by con artists along the way. And Vegas is certainly the place to find con artists to scam you. It's a good thing she doesn't know how to use the internet or she'd probably have been sending money to Nigeria all along.

Keith was telling me how she was thinking she was at home and was trying to get out of bed to close her bedroom door. She told him that the cat on the windowsill needed feeding so he pretended to open a can of cat food to feed it but she said that the cat didn't like that kind of food and he'd better feed the other one too. She does have two cats at home that they don't know what to do with, Keith is wanting to bring them here, but I don't know how our six would take to new cats in the house and we can just barely feed the six we have to begin with.

She also saw ants in her bed so Keith pretended to spray for them and that settled her down. Then there was James's dog that needed feeding so she gave it part of her breakfast. Keith said that if he didn't laugh about it he'd cry. So we had to laugh about it.

Bruce and other brother Brad are planning on staying as long as possible, Bruce's work having given him as much time as he needs although we were wondering how he'd pay *his* bills while being off work, and Brad having been in a government job all these years has months of paid vacation time saved up. So, although Keith has to get back home and get back to work, she won't be alone.

And that's about it for now.

3 comments:

PussDaddy said...

OMG my parents and grandparents did this too.

PussDaddy

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

Hang in their with Keith's mom - so hard. Tell him hi from me :)
Oh yeah, remember those bathing caps so well. I don't remember the pool in Maryland, but I do remember one in the Philippeans? I think. Or was it that Donna and I swam in the gutter... I know we did that.

CapriciousCat said...

Aww, poor, dear old lady. My mother, who died on the 7th, had been sick for a very long time, so I know what Keith is going through. My mother spent several months in the hospital, and all she wanted to do was go home and see her cat. But when she was back home, she kept asking why she was still in the hospital. Another time, she asked my sister and I if we'd introduced ourselves to each other yet.

On a lighter note, there was a pool just up the street from our house, and I used to practically live there every summer. The ONLY downside was those damn bathing caps! Do they even wear them anymore? You were lucky--there was no food sold or even allowed anywhere near our pool. They were really paranoid about that stupid one hour rule, and so were our parents. We kids were always in such a rush to go out and DO something, but that was the drill: "You just ate, so you're not going anywhere yet. You have to wait ONE HOUR before you go!" It was times like that, that I couldn't wait to grow up...