You got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere...

From one lot to another... (or snarky, snarky, snarky)

I'm skipping swimming tonight, and only because I couldn't find a parking space at the pool. That's it. I'm sure I'll run into someone who'll tell me that I should park at one of the adjacent lots and go, but I don't. On some levels I refuse: I've already paid to park at the pool. Granted, it's a flat yearly rate, but still. I think I should be able to park at the pool, and only there. I have my standard, as arbitrary and bad as it is, and it's created an expectation in me of where I can and will park.

Now, not helping me be ok with venturing elsewhere and having to pay (again) to park was the traffic jam that was the lot today. The pool lot is narrow, with only one 2.5-car-width driving space down the middle and a row of spots on each side (the north side of which floods every time it rains--read, it's flooded all summer, despite the fact that--or possibly because--the intercoastal waterway is right next to it). One car (rumored to be one of the team's coaches) decided to double-park, blocking off one side of traffic through the lot. Then, added to this, were parents stopping in the other direction, waiting for their children (and not using the drop-out/pick-up area 10 steps away) or paying--because they forgot to.

So I was stuck in the back of the lot, waiting for people to realize they weren't the only people in the world needed to move to let the cars behind them move, when a woman (reminiscent of the one from Monday night--but in a different car) comes up and asks me if I was going to (double) park where I was (she needed to get out, and I was behind her car). I told her I wasn't, and she asked me to move, apparently not concerned that there wasn't anywhere to go, and that she would only be making things worse by backing out. But she insisted, so I tried to appease her: only to look in my back window and see that a car had pulled within 6 inches of mine (due to the crowding). Anyways, I managed to zig-zag out from being directly behind her, she pulled out, and then proceeded to get out of her car to go talk to the people not moving. (Why she couldn't have done all this with her car in the spot, I don't know.)

Her exiting from her car caused about 1/2 the other people in-cars to exit, and do something (I'm not sure what). I got asked to move again, again with no where really to go, and then finally one of the cars up front decided to move and things cleared--slowly. All this irked me, and made me just leave... I was completely in the wrong frame of mind to swim--and probably still am.

The worst part: this isn't the first time this has happened, and given how things tend to operate here, it won't be the last (hell, I'll probably miss tomorrow night for the same reason). I guess I shouldn't expect too much: part of the reason the parking lot was so crowded was because the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF), located on the back of the property, was having an event for which they decided to section off the back portion of the lot. This is the same ISHOF that's having it's biggest event of the year this weekend, and yet if you go to their website right now, that event is pushed off to the side (as if it weren't really that important) so that they can glorify a recently deceased sponsor (and not the huge inductee that recently died: Brazil re-named their Nationals in her honor). At least, that's as near as I can tell (no offense meant to my buddy Jarret, their webmaster: I don't think he get to decide what is displayed prominently on the page: he just puts it there... he did do a very nice job on the website design/look, and he's even updated his blog! I was beginning to think his back injury was caused from not being used to posting...).

Anyways, enough snarkiness.... Maybe I should blame it all on the recent smokiness cause by the wild fires to the west of FtL, or yesterday's first Tropical Storm of 2007 (Andrea)--3 weeks before Hurricane seasons officially starts. Or maybe it's all because I didn't grow up swimming for FUN, la Federación Uruguaya de Natación (the Uruguay Swimming Federation). Or maybe I'll just wallow in it all, instead.... hasta (hopefully tomorrow will be better)

Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
Me, myself, I've got nothing to prove.