Sea Child Spends Hours In Shallow End of Massive Pool

Thanks to our friend Jess, who reminded us that the pool at FDR State Park was very recently renovated, we spent a full day in its fountain-bedecked shallows, roving from feature to wacky feature to experience a rich spectrum of soggies. As Kina rode around majestically on Laurea’s back (to emulate Frozen 2’s mystical “water horse” scenes), I decamped to the lap swim corner of the pool to “get a little exercise”, which looked in practice like me slowly front-crawling across the pool, panting for three minutes, and then trying to backstroke to the other side, giving up halfway, floating on my back and dragging myself along by the lane lines for half a length. It was impressive!

I later joined Laurea and Kina for a romp in what I call the “tippy buckets” in today’s top headline. The water feature works like this: Four conical buckets, some nine feet up, slowly fill from constantly-running spigots, until they become top-heavy and tip their contents out into the pool—and preferably on top of Kina’s head. The game looked like this: She and I moved from bucket to bucket, stationing ourselves directly under the intermittent deluge, as I looked her straight in the eye and said, “You’re safe. It’s okay, we’re safe.” Seconds later, the water would fall directly on her noggin as she sputtered in glee. It’s really dark, but she insisted on repeating the whole scenario dozens of times; I’ll leave the interpretation to some future therapist. (She can use this newsletter as documentation of my twisted sense of humor.)

Anyhow, it’s worth noting that I have not set foot in a public pool in the state of New York in possibly ever? I don’t want to suggest that all pools are as good as the pool at FDR State Park, but if they were, hooboy! Hot dogs, empty swim lanes, tippy buckets, crowds of fifty-something public school teachers arguing about the COVID vaccine, and at least one four-year-old girl screaming “TAXI!!” from underneath a torrential rain shower. A true melting pot, and properly chlorinated. Five stars; bring sandals, but no outside food.

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