Category Archives: Swimming

RIP Diane Keaton

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One of my favorite actresses passed away this weekend. I believe we are all mourning the loss of such a talented actress. (This image is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

Diane Keaton was a resident of Southern California and she owned a home in Palm Springs, which she and her family used for vacations. Her daughter was a swimmer, like my kids, and we’d be surprised to see Keaton on our pool deck during holidays. Just like other swim families, kids often drop in on local teams while the family has vacation. There’s not many days of missing practice in the swim world.

One year at Summer Junior Olympics in Mission Viejo, I spotted Diane Keaton on the pool deck. She was dressed in her usual Annie Hall attire. I learned this weekend that Hall was her maiden name and Annie was her nickname. Also, that her personal wardrobe was used for the movie of the same name.

Other parents at the Mission Viejo pool spotted Diane Keaton that weekend, too. Within minutes there was a murmer around the pool deck that Diane Keaton was there!

One of the dad’s from our team was face to face with Diane Keaton. He said, “You look just like that actress…” He couldn’t remember her name.

“Diane Keaton,” she said.

“Yeah, that it’s it. Diane Keaton. You know you really look like her.”

“I am Diane Keaton,” she replied.

He didn’t believe her. Keaton asked him if he wanted a selfie with her. She took the selfie with his phone. That dad rushed back to our pop-up tent and blurted to the group of parents, “I just got a picture with a woman who looks just like Diane Keaton.”

We all answered in unison, “That IS Diane Keaton.”

What a special person she was who didn’t put on airs for being famous, but wanted to live a quiet private life in spite of being an iconic figure and major actor.

What are your favorite movies with Diane Keaton?

Social Life

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I’ve written my Memory and Meaning proposal for my photography “Art Studio” class. My subject as I’ve said is sea glass, first choice. Back up plan is birds. This is one of my first sea glass pictures, taken outside in the morning light. I wrote about my sea glass project HERE.

We’ve had more than our usual social outings lately. It’s because our good friends and neighbors have been out of town — and then we were out of town. We wanted to connect and get together before we go our separate ways again. It’s busier than I enjoy, but there have been some moments that really touched me.

AI Overview:

Social life refers to an individual’s time spent interacting with other people and the quality of those relationships, often involving activities for pleasure or enjoyment with friends, family, and the broader community. A person’s social life can include both in-person and online interactions and is shaped by the bonds they form and the social opportunities available to them. 

I went to a baby shower for a woman who was a swimmer with my kids on the Palm Springs swim team. She earned a swim scholarship at ASU, broke the 200 free record, and now teaches elementary school in the Phoenix area. Her husband does electrical work for us and we’ve had them over for dinner.

I was so excited to see her, her sister and her mom. The mother-to-be is four years older than my oldest, but they all hung out together at the pool. Her sister is a year older than her, but I have the best memories of being at swim meets, so impressed with these sisters. They would engage the youngers under pop up tents playing cards, games and being silly at swim meets.

When I told my kids I was going to her baby shower, they both said, “We love them!” That’s saying something more than 15 years later from being swim teammates.

Back in the day, this mom took me under her wing and taught me all about being a swim mom. She showed me the ropes of volunteering at swim meets and what jobs were the best ones to sign up for. We’d host Friday through Sunday swim meets in Palm Springs with close to 750 swimmers. Maybe even bigger. That meant there would also be a mom, dad — even grandma and grandpa — for each swimmer. We had a snack bar that would serve breakfast and lunch for all those people.

We had a separate area of food for the coaches, around 50 of them. Our team had a reputation for the best food ever in Southern California for swim coaches. There were two reasons for this. (REASON ONE) Chef Francois from the Ritz Carlton was a swim dad. His daughter was one of our daughter’s swim friends. He prepared the coaches’ meals (REASON TWO) which was prime rib, turkey dinner and yes, LOBSTER. Another swim dad free dove for lobster off the Southern California coast and took his kids and their friends to assist in the catch.

All those memories came rushing back when I walked into the baby shower and got hugs from the sisters and the mom. How wonderful to reminisce, be around younger people that I truly love and the mom who I spent so much time with. We sat and talked during swim practices and worked together at meets. I didn’t realize how much I value these friendships from my swim mom days.

Below: Finches at the birdbath.

What do you consider a busy social life?

Do you like being quiet staying at home, or being out and about busy?

What friends from your past do you still see?

JoyRoses13 from Nuggets of Gold wrote a fun story on her blog using my photos of Red plus pictures from another photographer. You can read it HERE.

Remembering Swim Mom

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This photo was from my daughter’s last PAC 12 championship swim meet in Federal Way, Wash. It’s a ball pit in the lobby of the Natatorium for photo ops. Every year, they had something different to pose with. I’m sitting at the top right, not in the ball pit, because I’m wearing a brace after wrecking my knee skiing. This group of women were my compadres at the University of Utah — all proud swim moms of Utes.

Last week I was surprised to see an email with the subject line: “Swim Mom Advice.”

That brought me back to the roller coaster days of being a swim mom. Both my kids began swimming with our local club team at an early age. My son swam through high school, my daughter all four years of college.

A woman was emailing me for advice about her daughter who was a swimmer in college. No, I didn’t recognize the name. I have never met her. Nor, do I know who her daughter is or where she goes to college.

So why was she emailing me?

I used to write a weekly swim parenting advice column for SwimSwam, the world’s most read swim site. You can look at my stories HERE. I have a page for them on my blog.

For my column, I read sports parenting books and websites from “real” sports parenting experts. I also listened to podcasts. Although I used first-hand stories, I actually did homework and didn’t just write things off the cuff.

After a couple years, I started getting emails from swim moms sharing specifics about their children, coaches or teams. They wanted my advice. I turned this into a feature called “Ask Swim Mom” which I rotated into my weekly column. One thing about writing for SwimSwam, I got a lot of comments — some good, some downright vicious. For my “Ask Swim Mom” column a common comment was to stop making up stupid questions. That wasn’t true. I was flattered people emailed me.

I started writing for SwimSwam after interviewing for a managing editor job. The job turned out to be weekends and evenings — covering big swim meets — and not for that point in my life. But I did submit a story I wrote about being a swim mom. The founder and CEO of SwimSwam called me. He told me that if SwimSwam were a movie, they had a cast of characters, but no one to play the role of “Swim Mom.” He was casting me!

What was the email about?

There are lots of changes in collegiate swimming. I think it’s due to trickle down of NIL from football and other big money sports. Swimming loses money. It takes a lot of money to fund a pool. Consequently, rosters of swimmers are being cut at many teams. This swim mom said that swimmers were being cut, but not her daughter. Some of her daughter’s roommates and best friends were out. People including moms weren’t speaking to each other. I can only imagine how hard that would be for all the parents and swimmers — those who are staying have survival guilt. Those who were cut are devastated.

In any case, it felt good to be a swim mom again for a day. I replied to her email and asked my daughter for her advice and included it, too.

In the end, my daughter transitioned from swimmer to swammer and became a working adult. Of course, COVID shut downs had a lot to do with it not being easy. My swim mom days were over and I thought to myself, “Who would want my advice anyway?” Hence the end of “Ask Swim Mom” and my weekly column for SwimSwam.

What time in your life do you look back on and miss — or not miss? And why?

Odds and Ends

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It was windy and beginning to rain when I went outside to bring in a towel out by the pool. I didn’t want the towel to end up in the pool, or get wet from rain.

I pulled the towel off the recliner and a bobcat jumped out of the fireplace! We both were surprised. She ran to the fence and crawled through to the wash behind our house. I ran into the house. A few minutes later, she returned to the fireplace. I grabbed my camera with the telephoto lens and took a few pictures from inside our bedroom.

Olive the cat noticed her first bobcat. She got low into stalking mode — but stayed far away from the window as she watched. If it’s a bird, she’s right up against the window whacking at the bird through the glass.

The fireplace makes a cozy cat cave.

House Guests

The last house guest stayed with us for several days to scout a local lake. He’s entering a freshwater spearfishing competition. He arrived at our house with his boat and spent the next three days free diving in the lake from dawn to dusk.

He also brought us some treats from a recent fishing trip to Alaska. The freezer in the casita is filled with salmon, rock cod and black cod. There’s also lobster from his free diving off the coast of Southern California. What a treat! He’s welcome back anytime.

This is Black Cod that I cooked in foil on the barbecue. It’s my favorite fish which I used to get in Seattle’s Chinatown while I was in college. Incredibly delicious!

Things are not going swimmingly!

The past two weeks, I got back into the pool at the YMCA for lap swimming. I had stopped swimming during our wet, cold winter months ago. Then summer came and the weather was hot, which means I don’t like being out in the sun.

I was proud of myself and wanted to be consistent with swimming. Then on my swim day, the weather dropped overnight by 50 degrees! It was windy and rainy. I cancelled swimming. It warms up a bit this week, so I’ll get back to the pool.

One day while driving home from the pool, I heard INTELLIGENCE FOR YOUR LIFE MINUTES by John Tesh on the radio. It was about a Harvard study on ending your daily shower with 30-seconds of cold water.

In the study, people who ended their daily shower with 30-seconds of cold water had less sick days than those who took hot showers. I’ve heard of a trend of cold plunge lately by a number of celebrities. My college roommate’s husband said he takes a cold plunge in an icy stream at their home in Sun Valley, Idaho.

I found this information from UCLA:

What is cold therapy?

Cold therapy, also called cryotherapy, uses exposure to cold temperatures to cool the body’s tissues for therapeutic reasons. There are several ways to apply cold therapy, including:

  • Cold showers, which involve lowering the water temperature below 60 degrees for two to three minutes at a time
  • Cold spray, used to numb a small area
  • Cold water immersion or ice baths, or submerging everything but your head and neck in cold water
  • Localized ice application to treat injuries or specific muscle groups
  • Whole-body cryotherapy, which exposes the body to very cold vapors

Why cold showers could be good for you

Cold showers are not the primary treatment for any conditions, and conclusive research about cold therapy is still limited. But a quick blast of cold water can be beneficial when used for symptom relief.

Taking cold showers may:

1. Bolster your immunity to common colds

2. Combat symptoms of depression

3. Improve circulation

4. Increase metabolism

5. Reduce inflammation and prevent muscle soreness

6. Relieve localized pain

Our daughter used to take ice baths at swim meets in our hotel room between prelims and finals. The purpose was to flush out inflammation and increase blood flow to her legs.

Our pool isn’t heated and I could use it as a cold plunge pool this winter. Or, try the 30 second shower method. I’ll tell you how it goes.

What are your thoughts about cold showers or ice baths? Would you give it a try?

Have you tried Black Cod otherwise known as Sablefish?

My super busy week

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A cactus in bloom last May.
A cactus in bloom last spring.

Ever have one of those weeks? Where everything seems to be happening at once? I’m having one and I’m thankful it’s Friday.

My week started with one thing on the schedule each day. That’s unusual for me. I usually have more down days than days with things planned. I had appointments, my lunch bunch went to a fun new restaurant, I had a board meeting for my women’s group that supports sex trafficked women. We invited a neighbor over for dinner Thursday because his wife is out of town. I had my zoom call where we discuss all the things you’re not supposed to in polite company — current events, politics and yes, religion!

I even made it to the YMCA and started lap swimming again! Yay for me! It feels wonderful to be back in the water and helps my toes that have started to hurt again during my walks. I will credit swimming to keeping me calm during my super, busy week.

I got a phone call while out to lunch with my friends. A swim mom friend from Palm Springs called. We usually talk for an hour. I didn’t answer because like I said, I was out to lunch. I forgot about the call and then I saw they texted me several times. I realized I had missed a few calls from her earlier in the week, too.

This mom was one of my best friends on the swim team. I went to my first swim meet when our son was in second grade. I was overwhelmed. It’s like landing on another planet. I didn’t know what was going on. Our son was scared. We couldn’t figure out how we were supposed to know when he was supposed to line up at the blocks.

The first person to greet me with a big smile and welcome was this woman, who would become one of my best friends.

Our two kids swam with her daughter, who went to the Beijing Olympics at age 16 and London at 20. Their daughter is so humble that once our daughter said to her, “Wow. I get to train with an Olympian.”

She looked around and answered, “Really? Who? Where’s the Olympian?”

Our son and her daughter would do homework together at the pool before practice when they were in high school.

Wednesday night I called and my friend asked if they could stay with us for three or four days starting the next day. Her husband is in a spear fishing tournament at a lake by us. He wants to scout out the lake before the big event. Of course I said yes.

They are arriving Thursday, while we’re having our neighbor over for dinner.

Thursday morning, I moved Olive and all her cat stuff from the casita into our master bathroom. I moved my files, books and laptop, too. We had guests a little over a week ago, and I prepped and readied the casita for them. Gradually, my stuff and Olive’s found it’s way back in there.

Sheets are washed, bed is made and grocery shopping is done to stock their fridge with a few goodies. I’m good to go. I did let her know that I had two meetings on Friday and would be gone most of the day.

She said she’s not expecting me to entertain her. So all is good! But I was a bit overwhelmed….

Do you like busy weeks, or quiet alone ones? Or a mix of the two?

It’s the Little Things in Life that Count

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I knew exactly what I wanted to write about for today. But it involved my daughter, so I called her to ask permission. Her response, “Mom, I’m a person. I’m not content.”

Well, so then I didn’t know what to write about. So, I looked back on old posts and found this one from 2017 when we lived in Palm Springs. I find many of these little things in life make me happy –even though my views may have changed.

IMG_3210The view from our pool makes me happy.

I’m proud of myself today, because I started off the week with 5:30 a.m. practice. I’ve been trying to get up, half-heartedly I’ll admit, for the past month but the comfort of bed is just too much for me at 5 a.m. An extra hour of sleep usually wins out. But, today I did it. I made it to practice on time, began my workout in the dark and found joy in watching the views of the sunrise and pink-hued mountain change color during my workout.

I find a lot of happiness and excitement in the little things in my days. Our lives are made of small moments strung together and if we spend too much time worrying or focusing on the past or future, we miss the little bits of joy in the present. IMG_6878

Happiness is my daughter with her puppy.

Here’s a list of moments that make me truly happy:

Hearing the birds sing early in the morning.

My fourth flip turn during my second 200 at practice this morning. I nailed it.

Having lunch yesterday with a good friend and spending a few hours catching up with our lives.

Noticing that a family member got their dish off the table, into the sink and miracle of miracles—into the dishwasher.

Olive the cat honoring me with her presence and stretching out for a cat nap while I’m laying on my side. I have to be careful not to move, so she doesn’t fall off.

IMG_6921

Olive the cat in our back yard.

My kids calling just to talk. They aren’t asking for anything and there’s nothing big going on.

Sitting under an orange tree in my back yard reading a really good book.

Walking with my husband and marveling at the beauty surrounding us on a weekend morning.

Reading a positive comment on one of my articles.

Checking things off my to-do list and feeling productive.

img_7015.jpgBeautiful views of bougainvillea.

What little things in your life make you happy? What little things in your life make your day?

“Being a swimmer is something I do, It’s not who I am”

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swimmers celebrating

Photos: My daughter with her relay team celebrating at the Belmont Olympic Pool on the sand in Long Beach. This historic and treasured pool, opened in 1968 and was demolished in 2014.

I heard the phrase “Being a swimmer is something I do, it’s not who I am,” in an interview by Lydia Jacoby, gold medalist in the Tokyo Olympics and the first Olympic qualifier in swimming from Alaska.

Jacoby missed a spot on the Olympic team at Trials this year by .27 of a second. As heartbreaking as that may be, I love her statement that swimming is something that she does. It’s not her whole identity.

I believe many people, not only athletes, suffer when their identity is tied to their accomplishments, careers or relationships and lose WHO they are inside.

Two other stories from Olympic Trials 2024: Caeleb Dressel and Simone Manuel.

Both were phenoms as kids and reached pinnacle heights in swimming — in college and the world stage. Dressel is a seven-time Olympic gold medalist and holds world records in the 100 meter butterfly (long course and short course), 50 meter freestyle (short course), and 100 meter individual medley (short course).

Simone Manuel swam at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she won two gold and two silver medals. She won the 100-meter freestyle, in a tie with Penny Oleksiak of Canada, and became the first Black American woman to win an individual Olympic gold in swimming and set an Olympic record and an American record. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she won a bronze medal as the anchor of the American 4×100-meter freestyle relay team.

They both quit swimming out of the blue for health reasons. Dressel shocked the swimming world when he left the World Championships in 2022. Eventually, he opened up about depression. Manuel was diagnosed with burnout or overtraining syndrome.

Maybe they needed a break from being swimmers to find out who they were.

The Comeback Kids — Olympic Trials 2024

The 22,000 spectators went wild when both Manuel and Dressel earned spots on the U.S. Olympic Team after taking time off — and then began training to make the 2024 Olympic Team. Manuel made the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. Dressel made the 4 x 100 free relay and came in first in the 50 free and 100 fly.

Simone Manuel and Caeleb Dressel.

UPDATE: Simone Manuel won the 50 Free last night and now has an individual event as well as the 4 x 100 relay!!!!

What are your thoughts about swimming is something someone does, it’s not who they are?

What other examples can you share where someone loses their identity to something they are doing, but not who they are?