This weekend was extremely full for my little family. I already told you about the reunion I attended in yesterday's blog. Yes, I am blogging two days in a row -- stop the presses! But before all that chaos, I was honored to take my daughter to the TAAF Games of Texas for a swim meet. Swimmers have to qualify for state by placing in the top two in their region so it is an honor to be able to go.
Last year it was in San Antonio and we had a blast. I guess it was too much to hope for another pleasant state swim meet. This year it was in Waco, and as a former resident of the Temple area, I must admit to not having much love for my former neighbor to the north. Aside from Dr Pepper, they haven't really offered much and that contribution was quite a long time ago.
But I arrived in the city with high hopes for a pleasant swim meet. Those hopes were dashed, however when we were greeted at the Waco Water Park by some of the crankiest gatekeepers south of Dallas. We were not allowed to bring our own water into the meet. Excuse me, did I hear that right? The temperatures were in the triple digits and they were forbidding water? To make matters worse, we were also forbidden from enjoying the zero-depth pool next to the competition pool. It was however, fully stocked with lifeguards whose sole responsibility for the day was not to guard our lives, but to yell at any person who got near the edge of the water, even when they merely wanted to touch the water with their hands to cool their burning skin.
The swimmers also had no separate pool to warm up in so some of them, including my daughter, had to sit for more than 3 hours between the pre-meet warm-up and her event time. Not that she could cool off sitting in triple digit heat (did I mention that?) and with minimum water that was sporadically put in orange coolers placed around the pool. If we were lucky the water was luke-warm! If we weren't lucky the coolers were empty.
On the bright side, my daughter rocked that swim meet by shaving 9 seconds off her time and placed very well against competitors in her group --most of whom are a year older than she.
So thank you TAAF for inviting my daughter to swim at your meet, and thank you, Waco, for inventing Dr Pepper.
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