Barbara J. Hamby

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Swimming to a Showdown

The great thing about having a well-maintained swimming pool about two blocks away is that I’m the only one who uses it most of the time. If the outdoor temperature is 80 degrees or over, I may actually find someone else in the pool. But that happens rarely. The water is almost always comfortably warm, even when the air is cool and breezy.

So, most days, I have the luxury of a private pool. I exercise that privilege as often as possible. Swimming in solitude gives me an opportunity to think or to work on writing in my head. Rest assured that I’m in no danger swimming alone. I have enough body fat to keep me afloat. In fact I can no longer swim under water. I suppose I could use weights, but that would be a little silly, since my sinuses don’t like pool chemicals.

Swimming is also most of my fitness program. The little bit of gardening and housework I do certainly doesn’t slim me down or even raise my heart rate.

So far, I haven’t been able to solve my computer glitches while swimming. In fact, I haven’t been able to solve a couple of them at all. In a former existence, I was a pretty fair investigator. I hope I haven’t lost all of those skills.

Wading through the innards of these little boxes is not my favorite thing to do, but I’m getting better at it. The sneaky little elves who hide downloads in folders in obscure corners have been outsmarting me too long. It’s time for a showdown.