Sana helwa, ya gamil! (or, An Evening Pool Party with Egyptian Cousins, a Malfunctioning Boombox, a Legally Blind Mother Without a Swimsuit and Cake)
Tonight, at quarter to six, we set out for a pool party. I had been in denial all day, so had not found a swimsuit, had not addressed the state of my pits and still couldn’t remember whether I’d taken my medication this morning. So I suited up the children, derangedly imagining that Helena would not want to have anything to do with the water, since it has been hard to convince her to sit in a puddle all summer. Daniel was feeling tired and thought we might not stay long. But figuring there might be several well-groomed, cutey-patootie Greene Towne mothers there, I thought I should trade my decidedly un-cute glasses for contacts. Then, already a little late, we rolled out the door.
As soon as we got outside I realised that I could barely see. I squinted, I rolled my eyes, I tried to tear up, I rubbed my eyes, twitched the lenses and nothing. But we were on a roll so I thought, nah, this will clear up. It didn’t. I could see almost nothing. Nevertheless, I drove us there. I parked. I wandered through a blurry apartment complex until I found a pool. I managed vaguely to keep track of my children based on their height and the color of their swimsuits. But faces, tables, trees — all an impressionistic smudge.
Daniel tried to find Aya to present her with her gift. While running and carrying this tiny package, he tripped and fell, hard, on the concrete surrounding the pool and took all the skin off both knees, his elbow and his wrist. He howled so that people thought the sky was falling and clung to my neck and bled down my clothes. Another better mother than I produced two band-aids. They did much good and Daniel announced as soon as he saw them that he felt better already. And in the end, Daniel did a good job of recovering from his terrible injuries.
We wandered over to the pool. I had no suit on. Why why why was I so naive as to think I wouldn’t have to go in the pool? Aya’s mother is veiled — I knew she wouldn’t be swimming — I imagined several mothers lounging poolside, chatting, nibbling something salty while the children paddled in a baby pool. I also imagined not wanting to be chubby next to fit mothers, hairy next to smooth mothers, short next to tall mothers and wet next to dry mothers. I should have known better. The pool was a big proper pool, albeit with a shallow end of only 2 feet and Helena decided that today was the day that she would learn to swim. In she went and started bouncing in towards the deep end. Nothing would convince her to stay near the wall and she laughed derisively at the steps and any other day I would have been thrilled at this turn of events. But today? Well hell. So I rolled up my trousers and went in, and ended up having to play with someone else’s child too, which really took the cake, icing and all. Bet her mother had a swimsuit on and was well waxed. But good thing I don’t mind swimming in my clothes as I had to save Helena from drowning twice, although she seemed quite all right with that. The second time, admittedly, she did confess, “That was a little scary, Mommy. Will you give me a kiss?” and then went back in. By this time I am soaked past my waist, still blind, headachy and nervous. Helena is turning blue and chattering and trying to jump off the side of the pool.
Daniel, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a terrible moment when both his Garfield bandaids came off, suudenly decided that he did want to be in the pool. So now I had two children in the pool, trying to drown themselves while their seriously sight-impaired, jean-wearing mother waded about impotently imploring them to stay close so I won’t lose sight of them altogether.
I convinced them that food was served, although frankly, I wouldn’t have been able to see an alien spacecraft landing. Helena ate pizza and Daniel ate phenomenal amounts of pretzels and chips. Then they needed to go back in. I managed to drag them out again by sheer force of Mommy mean-ness. We wandered a bit. I talked to Aya’s Egyptian cousins a bit who were trying to make some music play although it kept cutting out for some obscure techincal reason. A woman named Naomi tried to engage me in intelligent conversation about Egypt while other Cairenes tried to investigate why I had been in Cairo and exactly how good my Arabic was while my trousers dripped onto my shoes and I tried to watch my children to make sure they didn’t sneak back to the pool.
Finally cake. And a pinata. Daniel scrambled for candy very successfully (I have had two lollipops while I write this) and had a book in his party-bag. I managed to drag the children home, making the seat all wet, driving by sound and managing to park not too far away. I probably had them in bed by nine.
Fun in the sun. I’m going to bed.
