Doodles

It was a very boring day at work just before Easter...very boring. Two people in the pool and everything is already clean boring. So while I was in the guard room I was doodling (don't tell my boss, kay!)

First I was in an Easter Mood:


Then I though, hey, why don't I ever draw fairies? Oh right, because I draw boring fairies...I need to get that figured out:


Then Gabe came in and visited me, he's one of the high school boys who helps coach the swim club. He asked to be mentioned on my blog so that he could be famous. Anyway he wanted to know why I was drawing a fairy and I said that it seemed like something girls should draw. He thought about that and asked me to draw giant monsters coming out of the ground in the parking lot and eating cars.

So I did:

Chicken

It is snowing madly outside like a mad snowing thing. It is, in fact, a winter wonderland. Which by the way March has been so far means that tomorrow should be nice, which is....nice because I'm wandering over Nelson way. Seriously though, why did I let Craig take the car? Also, I am sick.

Remember last week when I posted. Good times. So in my last post I told you that we went to Ainsworth Hot Springs. Here is a story for you:

There is this guy who comes to the pool. I think his name is Bill. He's probably about 70, or maybe under. He's Russian (as is half of the town) and he picks mushrooms. Not the kind popular amongst teenagers, he picks pine mushrooms, when you can get a nice chunk of change for. He has a pine mushroom tattooed on his arm so that even when he has a bad mushroom picking day, he still always has one. We are good friends and like to discuss the wildlife in our backyards, the snowpack, ect.

When he found out I was going to Ainsworth he started telling me how I haaaad to go into the cold pool. The cold pool? Well it is very cold. 4 degrees celcius. I haven't gone in there since I was a stupid kid. But he went on and on raving about it. How great it is for you health, how once you jump into the hot water again your whole body feels so alive. There are no words for this feeling, he tells me.

So we go to Ainsworth. And I don't go in the cold pool (because dude, it's 4 degrees!). And of course Bill asks me the next day how I liked it. And I cannot lie.

And now everytime I walk past him he hisses "Chicken!" at me.

Every. Time.

I should have just gone in the pool.

Work

Two amusing things about work at the pool lately:

- Someone has been leaving romance novels at in the ladies changeroom. Of the smutty variety. Of the seventies smutty variety. A LOT of them, I think we have found 10-15. We could start a vintage romance library. Who is the mystery book leaver? Why can't she take them to the used bookstore, or the thrift store? These are the questions! I do like to read the backs though...my theory is that 3 out of every 4 romance novels has to have something about "the burning passion that threatens to consume them both" on the back.

- Yesterday I spent a few minutes explaining how to float to the kids in my swimming class. Then I explained that whoever wasn't floating had to help me count seconds (we count them as jellybeans) for the kids who were floating (they have to float for 5 jellybeans). To sum up I said "So what do you do if you aren't floating?" and one of the girls said (without irony) "you sink." True that.

What I did at work today

That's me and the fire chief.

Fire + gasoline + extinguishers = best staff training day ever.

Also, new layout. It's time for spring to come...or at least Valentines :P. What do you think?

My computer is here!

Hooray of hoorays, my computer came home from the computer doctor today! There was a bit of concern as it was sent to my old place...I was afraid it would get sent back. But happily I was able to pick it up downtown. Hooooooray.

In other news:

We went to Nelson this morning. Craig had a gift card from me to spend and he got some climbing shoes and a chalk bag for Chrisymas. He also got some winter boots as apparently school is less fun when you have cold wet feet (he's in the forest all day). I got a couple books from the used bookstore (Pippi Longstocking and a Georgette Heyer book) and tried to get makeup...but I have to wait for my pretty organic mineral foundation...no dice for a couple weeks. We also had breakfast at Sidewinders (mmmm coconut chai and white chocolate scone...what, it's healthy!) and stopped at the co-op for some veggies and Green and Blacks chocolate and some of my favourite cheese. Oh and we got a green tea ginger vinaigrette dressing that's made in the Okanagan. Mmmm for food.

At work today we had a lady pass out on deck, she went all unconscious, and blue-lipped and bloody foreheaded. It was crazy. The first excitement I've had since working here actually. Nail polish massacres not withstanding.

Time to eat and then I'm switching computers!

Traumatic events at the pool.

It's been too long since we had a pool story, hasn't it? My pool here is just so mellow, not much happens. Anyway, this was yesterday.

I was cleaning in the shower area of the ladies change room, and thought I smelt something a bit odd, but I mean hey, my nose is still plugged so I didn't think much of it. Then my supervisor stuck her head in from the pool deck and said "Hanna, there's a lady in there who can't move because she's surrounded by glass!"

In my defence I can't see the into the change room from the showers.

I went in to check it out and what a sight! Glass and splashes of red where everywhere! The lady in question had a big line of dripping blood across her leg. Crazy!

And then I saw the nail polish brush on the floor. That's what the smell was. It was dark red nail polish all over the floor and down her leg. Her nail polish bottle had fallen from he purse.

No tragedy today. But it was still quite a mess to clean up.

Christmas at the Pool

So tonight was the Santa Pool Party. An exciting yearly event only surpassed by the Halloween Party. The Santa Pool Party is a lot more fun. Partly because there's a few less children (only 100 or so) and partly because they are ingesting less sugar.

We all have to wear Santa hats...which gets ridiculously warm on the pool deck...and I came out of the change room in my hat and uniform. There were a couple girls of about 4 or 5 in there. One looked up and said very excitedly "Hi San..." and then her voice trailed of into confusion as she looked closer "ta?". The hat a Santa does not make.

One of us does have to be Santa however and it's not a fun thing as you have to wear a full suit, padding, and the beard in 25(80is) degree muggy poolness. We had decided it would be Mark as he has the least seniority. Then I saw Nick getting into the suit and I said to Mitch (who was in charge) "Why isn't Mark Santa?" and Mitch said "Oh, Mark can't be Santa, he's Jewish." And I said "We have Jewish people here? Seriously? I guess I should stop mocking the Season's Greetings signs" (a rant for another time, but suffice it to say that there is no one in town that is celebrating anything other than Christmas...so why not just say Merry Christmas?). Anyway, Nick was Santa (he's 17 and Filipino, is that normal for Santa?) spreading joy and cheer while dying of heat. Then I caught Mark in the guard room and asked "Mark, are you actually Jewish, or did you just want to get out of being Santa?" and he said "There is no way I was going to put that suit on."

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell Nick that Mark's not actually Jewish. It should be a fun time.

I was in charge of snowman bowling. It was a pretty big hit.

Also, we had pizza. That is all for now...

Survival

Well, I survived my four weeks of 6 days of work a week. Well, after today, but today is a short day. I actually have 3 days off next week! Well, I teach aquafit one of those days...and have been force volunteered into helping with the rec centre's open house another day. But it's almost like days off. Maybe I will get some sewing done! Or wonder of wonders, clean my house.

Last night was the Halloween Howl at the pool. I'm not a big fan of Halloween but whatever. I decided to go as a tattoo artist, so I got those full sleeve tattoo nylon things and wore a lot of black. Then I set up a table and drew tattoos on children's arms with face paint. Now you (as all the children were) are thinking "Won't that just wash off in the pool?" And the answer is yes. But it's still fun, they just keep coming back.

Of course it's not easy to draw with a face paint crayon on a wet shoulder, so this wasn't any great showing of my skills. Some of the kids looked at the drawing as if they thought they would get something better. I did a semi-truck on one kids arm (and trust me, it wasn't that great) and he was sooo excited "it looks so realistic! It looks like it can really drive!" Too funny. Here's what else I drew:
- Many butterflies
- Some pumpkins
- A vampire (what? a stick man with a red mouth?)
- 2 mummies (what? a white stick man with no mouth?)
- A witch (oh, you mean a stick man on a stick)
- Bats (I love bats, you can actually draw those on arms)
- Spiders (ditto)
- The word SPY (that was my friends kid...not sure why)
- But mostly sculls...mostly sculls with snakes coming out of them. I probably drew twenty sculls with snakes. I don't really get it. Oh and that would be a white blog with black dots and a green wavy line. Real quality stuff.

Also, I have to add, chocolate eyeballs filled with peanut butter are far better than those filled with fudge or caramel.

meh

Poor little insuranceless car. Sits in the parking lot. I think she's lonely :(. But she gets to go to the car doctor on Thursday and then hopefully it is only moments until she gets reinsured. I mean, I know I said I wanted to excercise more...but it's a loooong walk to work. The buses in Castlegar don't feel the need to run evenings and weekends. I signed up for Yoga (because I can take it for free! Yay for perks!) and it starts tomorrow. But do I really want to walk 45 min there and 45 min back for a one hour class on my day off? Maybe? Yikes. Well, I'm taking the bus to work today (but not back, because 7:00 is past the buses bedtime) so I will buy a yoga mat in my 1 1/2 hours of spare time downtown and leave it at work just in case.

I thought I was rich but it turns out that my rent cheque hasn't been cashed yet :(. Maybe they are waiting until Friday? That would be nice...

Enough senseless rambling for one day?

Oh oh, wait, here's a quick Pool Story for you all. We had a couple guys in the pool last night...who seemed quite recklessly cheerful. When we cleaned the changerooms later we found the liquor bottle to explain why...but the one guy had a tattoo on the very lower part of his back/right buttcheek (which I saw part of, lucky me...) which said "Your Name". So that he could walk up to girls and say "I have your name tattooed on my butt!"

Classy.

Mir, I'm almost done your commission! Hopefully tomorrow as it's my day off.

Oh Nelson

I can already tell that I'm going to have much more amusing Pool Stories for you now that I'm in the land of the free spirited. Here are two from tonight:

1)For the last couple days I've been pondering the fact that one of our lady patrons must not have been born female. S/he is about 6 feet tall, barrel chested and rather muscly. With breasts. And something else missing. I can tell because s/he needs to wear larger bikini bottoms as the ones s/he has ride up the bum. And there are not that kind of bottoms. So anyway s/he was wearing a dark green bikini today and then for some unknown reason traded the top for a white sports bra. White in the pool is a Baaaaad idea. So s/he's sitting there on the edge and I can see nipples! From halfway across the pool. But is it bad to see a man's nipples I wonder. If they happen to be attached to breasts then I say it is.

Traumatized.

2)A couple of patrons were looking strangely at the steam room and mentioned that someone in there was a bit loud. I went to check and found a man sitting in the corner and alternating between chanting and playing a plastic recorder. Hrm. Well I didn't know if there was a rule against music in the steam room so I reminded him that the steam room is not in fact soundproof and asked him to keep the volume down. He cheerfully agreed and when the pool started to clear out for the night the sound of recorder music filled the pool. Hahaha, I'm a music lover but plastic recorder is not really my folk instrument of choice.

Hanna's life is coold

Rainy rainy it is again. Although we didn't get snow like you poor suckers in Lethbridge! Ahahaha. Sorry. I should be nice or it will come over here to get me.

So yesterday...I worked...for two hours as always. I'm teaching private lessons to a little boy (well 7) who is petrified of the water. We're making some good progress but still aren't into putting our eyes in. He was wearing goggles and I asked him to put his eyes in. He leaned over until the tip of his noes was touching the water. He tried and tried to get his eyes closer, then just gave up and pulled the goggles down until they touched the water. "I did it!" Hrm, that'll take some more work.

Also I made cinnamon rolls. I was unimpressed, apparently it'll take some doing before I'm a star pastry chef. They were too buttery and didn't rise. Screw Martha Stewart, I'm finding Gramma's recipe next time. Craig is in love with them however, so it's not a complete loss. He was pretty much a happy camper because I also made some sort of lazy risotto thing with summer squash and sausage...because that's what I found lying around. I make the best meals when I'm scrapping together ingredients from the fridge. Pity I didn't make enough for lunch...mmmm...

So today I had my interview at the Castlegar pool, it went quite well I think, but lifeguarding interviews don't phase me anymore. Bring on the tricky questions! I got home and read some more Harry Potter (so far it's kinda depressing...I hope it picks up a bit in the last half) and started making bread. The multigrain rolls are yummy and all but too small for sandwiches I've been informed. So I started making sunflower seed bread because I luuurve it and then realized that I do not, in fact, have sunflower seeds. I considered using pine nuts, but they are kinda pricey and I then remembered that the little store across the street that I thought was just vitamins and herbal supplimants has food type things. According to a friend of Craig's.

I threw on my coat and then the phone rang. Hooray! I am the proud owner of two jobs! This one is also with the same union, so the nice pay is the same but so are the crappy hours. However, I will hopefully get the supervisor position when it comes up. Oy. Keep praying for me.

So I then I ran over to the store, and it's fantastic, tons of nice bulk things and amusing ingredients. They even have a little flour mill where you can have flour ground. So I bought the sunflower seeds as well as a package of soup and some eggs because I couldn't bring myself to pay with interact for 85 cents. Then I got home started putting things in and realized that I do not have wheat germ. I have wheat bran. Not the same thing at all. So I found some change, threw on my coat and ran baaack through the rain to get wheat germ. Yeeeesh, well the bread is rising now so all should be well.

You notice how much I talk about food? Clearly I need to get out more. Before I become obese.

Oh haha, I forgot, this morning the phone rang while I was upstairs so I ran like the wind down to get it (losing a slipper in the process), hoping it was the pool giving me a job. It was actually a Jehovah's Witness who wanted to tell me about the bible. I listened to him as I went back up to find my slipper, but before I could tell him that I've actually read the bible myself, I tripped on the stairs and accidentally hung up on him. Whoops. I mean I was going to hang up anyways, but I try to be polite about it.

Hm, no work tomorrow either. Wonder what I'll bake...

Lack of Focus

Here is why you shouldn't write report cards while talking to someone.

Date: August 10/07
Instructor: Annette and Mike
Comments:
Dear Emily,
Your front crawl has improved a lot.
You are becoming a lot more fun.

Ahahaha, Annette was going to rip it up but I put it on the staff bullitan board. Too funny.

Also there was a small child in the pool yesterday of about...threeish. Wearing only pink ruffly bathing suit bottoms. Boy or girl? Either way, it just wasn't right.

A week in my life...continued

Oh life.

Wednesday:
So Wednesday morning was all well and good. Oh wait, Wednesday morning was when we learned that the heat had still been on since winter! The worst heat wave of the year in the muggiest building ever...and the heat was one. No wonder I was soaked with sweat every day!

Gah, then we had a fecal incident (of course). Baby managed to smear aaaall over the floaty baby seat. So mommy brought it all over to show us. Because we wouldn't have believed her otherwise... Yeah so then I got to disinfect the seat, the entire section of deck she dripped across, and go fishing for brown squishy treasures with the mat. As I was putting the hose back away it tapped against the wall and half a tile broke off and fell to the ground. Of course.

Then instructor #1 (the one who swears all the time) lost her cell phone. Her $400 (or $500...it varied) cell phone went missing. She alternated between yelling at us for stealing it and crying hysterically. She had me go through my purse with her watching. Way to win friends. She was very upset with us for not being more sympathetic. Then instructor #2 came in with fever shakes. She was freezing but burning up, awesome. She couldn't find coverage until after her lessons so she just sat on the edge shaking while she taught. Then instructor #3 complained that she was woozy and nauseous. I blame the fact that the heat was on!

Wednesday was a fun day.

Thursday:
Thursday afternoon I saw a fully clothed mother watching her little boy clutch a pool noodle in water over his head. Naturally I was curious.

Me: So....how old is he?
Mom: Five.
Me: You really should be in the water with him.
Mom: Hmmm...yeah he doesn't swim very well even with the life jacket, and I forgot it at home.
Me: You really should be in the water with him!
Mom: Well I can't you see.
Me: ?
Mom whispers: It's that time of the month! You understand.
Me: Actually I swim all the time.
Mom: Really?

No. No I just stand on the edge and yell "Sorry, can't rescue you! It's that time of the month!"

Friday:
Today was pretty good actually. Turns out the heat was indeed on and now it's much nicer! Time for my Friday Five!

Down with German Accountants!

Here's my week so far:

Sunday:
Church was air conditioned. Otherwise I just laid around whining about the heat.

Monday:
So Monday morning I got to work and unlocked the doors as I always do (I arrive 10 minutes before the pool opens, so it works out). It was an aquafit morning and there were three new ladies waiting to get in. Eagerly waiting. Angrily eagerly waiting. The one lady yelled at me about how they only had 2 minutes to get changed and I thought "gee I hope I'm not that late!". But when I got in I realized that it was only ten to and politely mentioned that perhaps her watch was wrong? She didn't think so.

When I went to let the patrons out onto the pool deck I found that the "No admittance, Pool unsupervised" chain that blocks the door was removed and the ladies had admitted themselves to the unsupervised pool. This makes me aaaangry, by the way. The other ladies said "we told them!" And then one of them (a pleasant mid-sixties lady) muttered "b****es like that don't need to come here" Oh, so the change room was fun too! The men stayed in their change room, because the chain was there! See my regulars are better trained.

Then the vocal lady yelled about where was the instructor (in the pool!) was she going to do anything (oh please Katy, do something!). It was good fun, especially as I was still a bit loopy from sleeping pills and couldn't formulate an adequate reply. She was wearing a bikini and goggles. An odd combination, and neither are really aquafit wear. So long story shorter she (and her two friends) grumbled and complained and made super good friends with Katy and the regulars.

Then while doing a series of tuck jumps her entire nipple popped out of the top of her suit.

I thought "I could tell her, but she'll just yell at me again!"

Katy thought "I could tell her, but she's mean!"

The regulars thought "ha! b**ch shouldn't wear a bikini to aquafit!"

And so she remaind doing tuck jumps with her nipple hanging out for a good five minutes until she noticed on her own (her friends were at the other end of the pool).

This story has two morals:
1) be nice, you never know when you will need a friend.
2) Wear a sport suit when doing aquafit.

Tuesday:
Tuesday I had a conversation with a swimming lesson mom that went like this:
me: So how are lessons going?
slm: Well I have a concern about my son's instructor.
me: oh?
slm: We were driving home last night and I asked him how his lesson was and he said "Mommy my teacher swears all the time"
me: awesome

So I guess there was a whole lot of "Oh My God!"'s thrown around by said teacher and they are a nice Christian family so it was quite upsetting to the little boy. Good times. So I got to write said instructor a letter about professional and child friendly language. Good times.

Geeze, that's only Tuesday, I'll fill you in on the rest tomorrow.

A conversation with William

William is a regular at the pool, he's a bachelor in his 70s. This conversation takes place after a lengthly debate on the topic of "what was the name of your church's previous caretaker whom I met at Tim Hortons this morning?". It was a bit of a one sided debate as I don't even know who the current caretaker is!

William: I have a cousin who lives up in Calgary and you'll never believe what he told me!

Me: hmm?

William: It's just the craziest thing!

Me: hmm?

William takes a moment to shake his head in bemusement at the general craziness of the world.

Me: hmm?

William: So my cousin, he was shopping out at that Chinook Shopping Place. And he went to the bathroom.

William: And you'll never believe what they have in the bathrooms there!

Me: hmm?

William: They have TV screens! Right there in the bathroom! Right above the stalls!

Me: uh huh?

William takes a moment to shake his head again and chuckle to himself.

William: I have never in my life heard of such a ridiculous thing! Never in my life!

William: You know what's going to happen!

Me: hmm?

William: They're going to get smashed! Guys will just walk right up to them and...

William makes a punching motion accomponied with a "pow!"

Me: hmm?! (no really, I'm lost by this point)

William: And I won't blame em! No siree!

William: They could have cameras behind those things!

Me: That's illegal you know.

William: Ah! But if they'll go this far...

Inappropriate

Here's three inappropriate things kids have done at the pool lately. From mildest to worst.

1)There were two kids in the tots pool, a two year old girl standing on the edge and a four year old boy in the water. The boy gets a big mouthful of water and spits in directly in the little girls left eye. I admit it was pretty funny.

2)A little three year old girl is my preschool lessons. She's this adorable little chubby chinese girl and I love her. She was sitting in the hot tub after lessons singing to herself quietly. I went closer to hear what she was saying and she was singing "gagina gagina". Noticing me sitting near her she said "I have a gagina". I said "um". She said cheerfully "wanna see?"

Oh honey.

3)We have a spray park with large sprinklers and whatnot outside the pool building in the park. I was watching the cute little kids run around when a girl of about six pulls down her bikini bottoms and just starts peeing on the cement. She wasn't near the sprinklers either, just on slightly damp cement. Damper now. She was finished peeing and had pulled her bottoms up when mom noticed. I couldn't hear through the window but there was much angry gestering and some yelling that I guess was along the lines of "You stupid child! Don't urinate in public!"

Ahahaha

Vermin

So yesterday at work, the pest control guy came by. We had called him because we have ants all over...and usually there are no ants when it's still snowing every other day (oh you heard, snow this morning!). So the Orkin Man comes in and well...he doesn't speak english oh so well. East Indian. Also he had a very cool hat with lights in the brim...to see vermin in dark corners I assume. I took him over to the most anty area, the concrete bleachers on the pool deck. Assume that everything he says is with a very thick accent, I'm no good with typing accents.

Orkin Man: hmmm hmmm.....yes many ants

Me: Yeah I think they're coming out of that hole.

Orkin Man: It is because of the food. See. Bread crumb!

Me: Yes well, the kids sometimes eat snacks up there.

Orkin Man: Sneks!

Me: yes?

Orkin Man: SNEKS!

Me: um...yes...snacks

Orkin Man: THEY EAT SNEKS UP THERE! (pantomines a long thin object)

Me: What? No! NO! Not SNAKES! They eat food! Like cookies!

Orkin Man: oh. I thought they eat sneks.

Oh dear. Also he believes we have fire ants and took ant samples to figure out what to do. We're pretty sure they're normal ants as there are a) not red and b) not biting the patrons.

Now imagine the fun Supervisor Girl has been having on the phone with him, trying to get him to come back and actually kill the ants.

Happy Monday!

Well today was a Monday, no getting around it. Mondays are always my busiest days as I teach Aquafit and two hours of lessons. Plus getting caught up on cleaning and paperwork. And you know...guarding the pool. But today was special.

This afternoon Lance was guarding when on of our special needs patrons went unconcious in the pool. He had trouble swimming and then just fainted I guess. So Lance pulled him out, unconcious and not breathing as far as he could tell...I got to use the oxygen tank and the ambulance came and the whole nine yards. The guy was awake and talking by the time they left, so that should all be good. Ambulance came in about....2 minutes from us calling which was really great. All hail Hero Lance!

Then, not an hour later another adult special needs patron was in the hot tub when I noticed a yellowy brown.....puddle? Then I saw it was all up his back. Eeeeeew. So the diaper just wasn't enough today. Then we got to empty the pool and scrub it and refill it. And by "we" I don't actually mean me.

Yeah a lot of paperwork today. Didn't get my planned paperwork anywhere near done.

Oooooh monday.

Kids and Fairies

First the kids, I don't have any kids of my own, so I will bore you with stories of cute things other peoples children have said and done this week

William age 2 to the candy machine: I love this thing! (and then he proceeded to hug it.)

Emily age 3 is standing on the side of the pool with her bathing suit top bunched up around her armpits. Mom says "pull your bathing suit down honey!". (see where this is going?) Whoosh, off go the bottoms.

Alexa age 8, during swimming lessons: So how old are you?
Me: 25
Alexa: My teacher is 25.
Me: ah.
Alexa: So you don't have kids then.
Me: Some 25 year olds have kids.
Alexa: Well I think it's too young!


Um, here's another sneak peak at Perizada Designs lovely webpage layout:

Idiot update

So last friday, when I had to jump in after that kid? Our Pool had a high bacteria count. I didn't have time to shower because we were so busy so I didn't really shower till the next morning. And I pretty much have a mild allergic reaction all over my entire body.

It's awesome!

I itch aaaall the time, on every single square inch of my skin, I have little red bumps on my arms and legs and my face is both peeling from dryness and breaking out. I love my job. Right? Right.