Armpit Inspection

It is HOT. It is swelteringly hot. Temperatures have been around 40 Celsius, which is near 100 Fahrenheit! I think living in San Francisco for the past 7 years has weakened me to such extreme heat.

So Drew and I decided to cool down with a dip in one of the many city pools while at the same time getting in a workout. Club de Amigos is located in the Woods of Palermo, the largest city park I've found so far. It has everything! It seems like a huge country club. There are all sorts of fields for futbol, field hockey, basketball, , sunbathing (the second national sport here, second only to futbol.) Getting in was a challenge. On line, their entry was listed as being $7 pesos. This had then gone up to $10 pesos, and there was a separate fee for the pool, $25 pesos. Everywhere we turned, the price started going up! It is the new year and inflation is at about 20%. In the end, it was about U$S 11, so a fair enough price.

The two outdoor pools were packed with people and didn't have lap lanes, so we checked out the indoor pool. It seemed like a decent pool, with plenty of space in the lanes. But before I could get in, the life guard came up to me and said I needed to get a doctor's note. What? Around the corner there is a small medical office. I waited for Drew to come out of the men's dressing rooms to explain this to him. He had already gone through this whole scenario. When trying to check in his bag, the guy asked him for a certain piece of paper. Drew's Spanish is excellent when it comes to ordering food or asking for directions. It's everything you need to get by driving your motorcycle through Mexico. Being told he needed a doctor's note was not in his vocabulary. after multiple attempts to explain this to Drew, the bag-check clerk jumped over the counter and walked Drew to the medical clinic. With a clean bill of health documented on a piece of paper, Drew was ready to swim. He gave me a quick update on what to expect. I sat on a bench in my bathing suit, waiting for the door to open. It was a small room with a guy in a white coat. He asked me to raise my arms to check for fungus in my armpits. I hesitantly raised my arms, fearful of offending him with my sweaty pits. It's been a hot and sticky day. This is the last thing I want to do! Then he checked my feet for athletes foot or toenail fungus. Augh, what a job this guy has. I hope it's not his full time job. I can just see his resume "armpit and toe inspector!"

Then it was back to the pool to finally do some swimming. Drew was at the other end of the pool and shouted back to me, "Hey Nic, check this out!" He stood up and the water came up to his knees. The water was only 1.5 feet deep at the other end! So in swimming my laps, every time I came to the far side of the pool, my fingertips would graze the bottom of the pool. This would be perfect for triathletes as this signals the time to jump up and start running out of the lake or ocean.

In the end, it felt great to swim a few laps and use muscles that have been resting for quite some time. And now I also know that I officially have clean armpits and toes!