Random observances

Recently I switched from the afternoon to the early morning swim and much to my chagrin, it is more crowded. And also to my surprise, I am the fastest morning swimmer in my lane, as opposed to being one of the slowest in the afternoon.

But being underwater and being faster, I tend to creep up on other swimmers and I have discovered what I think is the primary reason I am the faster swimmer. A good portion of my morning swimmates do NOT kick their legs very often. It's weird and all I can think is that they don't even realize it. Their legs are dragging dead weights and all that comes to mind is when I used to take dance lessons and be absolutely convinced my arms were perfect only to be shown by the instructor that they were flopped back too far or drooping.

Part of athletic ability in any sport is having a physical awareness of where your body parts are and what they are doing and I have found that without coaching AND lots of practice, your form will never improve. I just hope that my form is a-ok.

Like that challenge of patting your head while rubbing your belly, people are perhaps not aware of their inability to do two different things at once, kick and stroke. I passed one woman, after watching her half-ass kick between pair of her strokes, and after I passed her again a second time I noticed her kicking more and I wonder if my fly-by had anything to do with it.

Oh well.

Also-pool etiquette. If you are getting ready to start a lap-look to the other swimmers and please notice before you budge in front of a faster swimmer. Geeez that is annoying.


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I saw on the news this morning the story of a woman whose eyes were gouged out and nose taken off by her good friend's pet chimp. OMG. HORRIFYING. Apparently a nearly 200 pound chimp has nearly 4 or 8 times the strength of a human of that weight. ALSO!! this particular chimp was fed XANAX-WTF??!! Why would someone give a chimp xanax????? And this chimp was known for being surly, escaping the house by using keys, driving cars, and in general being temperamental. I think the poor woman who owned that chimp was judgementally deprived....but now I am sure she feels AWFUL that her friend is permanently blind now and had to have material attached to her missing lips so that she will be able to speak normally. But holy cow this is a horrifying lesson to be learned. The woman whose chimp it was stabbed the chimp with butcher knife and hit him with a shovel but still the chimp persisted in his attack.

I also read that another man lost his genitals and nose after a chimp escaped from a zoo and attacked him.

Erm. Wow. I have a new very healthy respect for them, and a little bit of fear too.