I got to swim with a dolphin today. It was my daughter-in-law’s idea. They had promised my granddaughter that for her birthday, she could swim with the dolphins and she asked me if I wanted to do it too. Swimming with a dolphin has never been on my bucket list like going on a hot-air balloon ride, but I figured, what the heck, I’ll go.

My biggest concern wasn’t getting into the water with 300-plus pound fish, it was if the water would be unbearably cold. Cold and me, especially cold water, just don’t mix. When I was taking the deep water aerobics class at the Rec Plex, I was so bothered by the temperature of the water, I developed a routine after I put on my swimsuit. I would take a hot shower, leave the locker room and then stand in front of a big fan near the pool so I could get as cold as possible before getting in the pool.

I was so filled with anxiety over the possibility of the water being too cold that the night before I had two weird dreams that contained bodies of water. You know how dreams are, sometimes they just don’t make sense. I won’t go into detail, just suffice it to say they were weird.

I got to talk to my girls later in the day when I called their servant, the Great Hunter. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but I was sitting on the condo’s deck enjoying the peace and quiet. I had opted not to go to the beach because my knees had gotten pretty burned the day before. I have a pretty good tan from mid-calf down but because of my vanity, my knees don’t generally see the light of day. I don’t like to show my cellulite, veined and fat knees, so I always wear capris.  I’ve only worn shots once this summer when it was very hot and I just couldn’t do my longer capris.

My son and his wife aren’t small people and my granddaughter, one week away from her thirteenth birthday, is already taller than me. Big people have big voices and add to that my daughter-in-law’s mother, who has dementia, either sings or babbles constantly, it has been pretty much of an auditory overload for me. Many evenings at home, the Great Hunter watches YouTube videos in his man cave and I’m more of a First 48 type of person and sit in the living room. Often the only conversations I  have are between me and the girls when they sit beside my chair and stare at me. I know what they want; they want to go outside. So when quiet is the norm, constant voices can be sensory overload.

I sat on the deck and reveled in the peace and quiet and enjoyed watching them on the beach and worked on what I called my “Sanity Saving Beanie.” (First try crocheting anything in a long time.