Confessions of a Pool Whore

The nicer term for that would be Pool Moocher, but I’m not that nice.

Summer in the SFV is many things, and one of them is unbearable. Knowing that I would be unemployed in the traditional sense during this summer, I made sure to keep in touch and/or befriend anyone with whom I came in contact who lives in a place at which there is a usable swimming pool. I can take Kyle to the beach, but I wouldn’t swim there with him. In a swimming pool, however, I can wear Kyle in his swim harness, and I can also place him in his infant carrier and do laps, while socializing with whatever New Best Friend I have that day.

I fear I have even railroaded people into spending a day in their pools because I’ve been so desperate. “What?! You moved into your condo a year ago and you haven’t even tried out the pool?! What are you waiting for? I’ll be there in an hour.”

And so it happened that I agreed to cat-sit for my very good friends (in truth, they were already such BEFORE they acquired a loft in a building with a rooftop pool) while they are on vacation and shooting a film in Oklahoma (the wife and husband, respectively). Although the drive from the SFV to downtown L.A. is a tricky and not seldomly an awful one, I in fact offered to do this because I knew I could use the pool every day.

Up until today it’s been great. Kyle and I check sigalert.com before we leave to assess the traffic, and depending on what we find there, we take either the 5 or the 101, which both have exits blocks away from the loft. When we arrive, we find street parking, gear up the stroller, and go on up to the loft. It’s cool and quiet and the cat runs out from wherever he hides to greet us and play. So we play. Then we gear up Mommy for the trip upstairs to the rooftop. The view of the city is gorgeous and the pool is always cool and deserted since it’s the middle of the week. I swim first while keeping an eye on Kyle every second, then he joins me. Then we hang out a bit to dry off, and then we reverse all the above processes, taking care to play with kitty once more before we leave for the day.

So, today. I thought perhaps I would skip today because Wednesday is Gymboree day which is located at the opposite end of the county from the loft. But my friend’s laptop computer arrived today, AND Kyle and I took a walk this morning that left me dripping with sweat, so I decided to go for it. I have air conditioning in my car, so we’d be fine.

My car.

When I went out to load up the car the first thing I did was start the engine and air conditioning. I loaded up the car, popped the baby in, sat down and put the car in reverse to back out of the driveway. Nothing happened.

Um.

Oh, the car’s not actually ON. Seems I only got the electronics going so the air could start. So I started the car. Nothing happened.

Alright, now what?

Seriously, my 7 month old NEW CAR, with only 7,000 miles on it, will not start. I am stranded. I righteously CANNOT BELIEVE THIS.

Towtruck here. More later.

****

And now it is later. The driver was sweaty and hairy and missing several teeth and allowed his shirt to be open and expose his many, many tattoos. He was also very nice and seemed to know what he was doing. He came with one of those fancy flatbed towtrucks, and took my new car away.