Since the baby has been born, Chris has been insistent that we do little things to indulge ourselves and relax. One of those things is to make sure that our freezer always has ice cream in it. For him, it means going to the pool regularly to have his morning swim. He started this probably about the time when he went back to work. For me, it has meant occasionally making time to go up to our roof to enjoy the Jacuzzi, or going to the gym to do a 30 minute workout between nursing and pumping after my six-week postpartum checkup.

Today, I went up to the roof to enjoy a quick 15 minutes of the Jacuzzi. And, if I understand the way that hot tubs work, it is normal and expected to have the jets going. That means that there is plenty of water pressure for aching muscles and for relaxation. Having them on always feels good, especially given I have had achy muscles from gradually returning to the gym and working out. My hips have felt strange, and my core and thigh muscles are definitely feeling the transition into working out again. So you can imagine how surprised and weirded out I was when an older woman was in the Jacuzzi without the jets going, and I turned them on when I went in. The jets were going for about 10 minutes when she said to me that she wanted to turn them off for just about five minutes and then she would leave. She said that she just wanted to relax and that the jets were not relaxing.

I gave her a strange look and said it was fine  since I had to leave soon anyway, but in my mind, I was thinking: if you find the jets of a jacuzzi stressful, I really wonder what the hell kind of life you have led? 

This woman, along with her roommate, who is also an older woman, are often times up on the roof enjoying the pool and the Jacuzzi. Our handyman who is also our friend told us that the two of them were formerly doctors before they got retired and as friends, they decided that they would live together and rent an apartment together for company. That sounds like a great way to ensure that they are not lonely in their old age, but honestly, they are both a little neurotic and ridiculous. Yesterday, when I was up on the roof and trying to enjoy the Jacuzzi again, the same woman was in the Jacuzzi while her friend was getting out of the pool. The Jacuzzi has a setting where residents of this building can turn on and off the jets with a timer. The same woman was in the Jacuzzi without the jets and I turned the jets on and set the timer to 15 minutes. Her friend coming out of the pool got alarmed when I turned the jets on, and she looked at me with this crazed expression and asked if I had turned the temperature up on the Jacuzzi. I told her that it was not possible for us to control the temperature of the Jacuzzi and that instead, I had turned on the jets/timer. She was about to enter the Jacuzzi until we had this exchange, and even after I responded to her, she said to her friend/roommate that she was not comfortable getting into the Jacuzzi with the change I had made and would go immediately back to their apartment. I am not sure what the hell makes her think that any building would allow any resident to actually control the heat of a hot tub… Allowing residents to ultimately boil each other to death, but hey, it’s her neuroses that is preventing her from enjoying, and I really did not care.

So, while I do believe that it is cute that these two older women have decided in their golden years to become roommates, a la The Golden Girls, it is just unfortunate that they are both a bit psychotic and slightly spoiled my own relaxed time away from child care duties and pumping.