I Love to Go Swimmin with Wimmin.

Guest blog: Friend who cooks pancakes.

Hello blog world. Yesterday, Friend-with-a-smart-car-who-drives-a-truck-for-the-weekend set the bar very high for guest blogging. I hope I can do half as well.

Happy pool-opening day. Today’s blog title was inspired by my good friend Kyle Meredith who played a little bit of Gene Kelly on WFPK yesterday afternoon in honor of the beginning of Summer Swimming Fun. Here’s some summer fun video for you.

I love the pool. I would go to the pool everyday if I could. This is hilarious to most of my friends for two reasons. First, I’m ghostly white. The sun is my mortal enemy. Secondly, and this is the important one...I can’t swim. I love the pool. Can’t swim. I guess that’s not entirely true. I can swim the hell out of 4-foot-deep water. I guess I know how to swim. I don’t know how to not drown. Put me in deep water and I’m a goner. Before I get a million offers for lessons, please know that I’ve tried them. All of them. Even Brigid, who has taught half of Louisville to swim, has been unsuccessful in her lessons for not drowning. Michael Phelps I am not.

I love the pool for the experience of it all. The smell of sunblock and chlorine. Grilling burgers (and tofu for Brigid). Babies getting in the pool for the first time...swimming better than me after 10 minutes. Kids jumping off the diving board for the first time. I especially love my niece and nephew (aka my nephieces)...they will do anything to garner my attention...Hey Uncle, watch me backstroke, watch me flip off the dock, watch me swim underwater, watch me climb the high dive, watch me climb back down from the high dive.

Mostly, I love my pool for the snack bar and the 1960s prices. More specifically, I love the grilled cheese sandwich. It’s the most basic, non-fancy grilled cheese. It’s perfect. I am a sucker for a grilled cheese sandwich. I’ve had lots of fancy grilled cheeses over the years...Gruyere cheese, pepper jack, goat cheese...you name it. But the plain grilled cheese at my pool is unbeatable. I’m sure there are better tasting sandwiches out there...but for me it’s the perfect combination of cheese, chlorine, uncle-attention-grabbing, and the fear of drowning.

Happy Summer!

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