I live in an apartment complex that I have literally lived at five separate times in my lifetime. I have been here for six years this time, which is the longest I've stayed but there's a really good reason for it. I am in a coveted two-bedroom apartment, and even though it's not one of the ones in the same building with the washer and dryer, that would be cool, it is an end unit, and if I ever leave I'll have to wait 18 years to lease here again because NO ONE ever leaves this place unless or until they die!
Our complex is one of those that you just sort of pass when you're driving by and you never really stop and notice it. You may remember it because there are usually 100 geese walking across the road at any given time and if you speed by we (the people who live here) will throw things at your car, chase you down, and beat the living tar out of you if you ever did hit one of our birds. I think we've had more police visits for that than anywhere else in the city, but the police typically just warn us again and tell us it's not really legal to threaten the lives of people and we should stop. We'll stop, sure, when they stop trying to run over our birds. Call us crazy, but we do love our Canada Geese here at the "Hub" as we refer to our little slice of Heaven.
Many of the tenants are either currently active in the military or are veterans. When I say many, they are becoming fewer and fewer in numbers; my son moved away when he married, and there have been several passings of neighbors and loved ones over the past few years. We're changing our ways some too, and not pushing nearly as many would-be trespassers into the pond - - oh, the glory days. Our little peaceful oasis has from time to time been trodden on by passers-by that don't pass by as quickly as perhaps they should and well, the ducks and turtles meet new friends from time to time, we'll put it that way. At night our complex is well guarded by the men (mostly grown boys) who like to play Night Ninja, wear red-lensed goggles, carry firearms, and keep the peace - - again, those days are fewer and farther between than they used to be. Most of the splashing nowadays takes place in the pool.
Our pool sits prominently in the middle of the complex and hasn't been active in years. We didn't use it much in 2017, 2018, or 2019, and of course, with COVID looming like it did in 2020, it wasn't even opened for use. This year we saw the first day of swimming just two days ago due to a broken filter and lack of real interest by the old tenants -- old meaning we've been here a very long time. The new tenants complained enough I suppose so the maintenance men decided to fix the filter and there you go -- one nicely barely used pool that sits in the middle of the complex and invites all of us to enjoy its cool refreshing waves and yet - - we all just tend to wait until after the sun starts to melt so we don't find ourselves roasting and passing out from heat exhaustion. We should throw up a few lights and open the gates from 8 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. instead of the current hours of whenever Chris gets around to it, and whenever Chris decides it's time to close it down for the day.
Lately, however, (and by lately I mean the last two days) I've been doing water aerobics to substitute the power walking that I was doing before after working out in the apartment during the day so I don't die of heatstroke during the day outside - - it's a lovely way to close out an evening really, and after boxing, for 15-20 minutes it makes sense to shower quickly and then jumping into the pool for 45 minutes to run in place and look like I know what I'm doing. I really don't know what I'm doing, but I sure do have an audience. I can look around the complex (the pool is in the middle, remember) and I can see my neighbors lifting their mugs and bottles to salute me as I pretend I have a few clues on how to effectively do water aerobics. It's really a lot more like "just keep things moving Jude, and you'll be OK" - - it's a plan. I always have a plan.
So I looked it up, the night before last, and water aerobics burns off about 400-500 calories an hour - so yeah, 45 minutes should be around 300-400 and if I do it really vigorously, which I tend to do, I might just hit that 400-500 mark before I'm done, and all the calories I consumed for dinner will be GONE! Zap! Bam! Vamoose! Nata! (OK, stop with the onomatopoeia, they get it) I can eat, wait 15 minutes, jump in the pool, run in place like a maniac, and twist my arms around like I'm some sort of aqua gymnast, and when that becomes too tiring I can sit on the steps and pretend to be a frog. I can dog-paddle to the other side, because you burn more calories that way according to Google, and I can do massive amounts of squats in the shallow end and actually feel the burn! Doin' it.
Tonight I decided to stand in the shallow end and bend backward to "practice" hanging upsidedown because very soon my portable aerial hammock will arrive; the one I will hang over the door frame in the hall. I will need to be limber enough to climb into it and literally do the upsidedown hanging like a bat thing, but before I can do that I have to practice the pose somehow -- the shallow end is a great place to do that; see, innovative, creative, resourceful, and effective. Some days you just have to find ways to entertain the neighbors. They are so going to miss me when I move to Scotland. They expect it.
Maybe when I move to Scotland I'll have a stand put out in the backyard where the greenline once stood, and I'll hang the portable aerial hammock on it. I'll twist myself into it and hang upside down, spin, turn, wrap myself up and roll out - - just to see if any of my new acquaintances will even notice. God knows I'm not ever going to hang clothes out to dry outside -- it rains in Scotland you know, it rains 149 days on average each year - - compared to the 82 days we may see precipitation in Oklahoma each year - - nope, I am NOT made out of sugar, I won't melt, but I'm not hanging my clothes out to get wet again after I just washed them. Maybe my new neighbors will be curious enough to come over to the fence to see what the heck I'm doing. We'll see. It's a plan. You gotta have a plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment