Green Slime

Green Slime. That's my term of endearment for the infamous Park Plaza pool. It's hard to believe that my friends and I actually swam in it last summer. Sometimes for hours and hours at a time, playing pool basketball, racing across it, playing chicken, attempting and sometimes succeeding to fit 3 of us in a small inner tube. The water was so clear, reflecting the sun as it glided across the sky throughout the day; it looked incredibly inviting. Those were the days! All that remains of that pool are the memories and the most likely radioactive remains of the water from last summer. It all started one fateful day when someone came and posted a sign outside the pool gate that read "Closed, Utah County Health Department". It could only mean one thing -- the chlorine levels were alarmingly low, which explained why the water had been looking cloudy that week. The nerve of those people! Cloudy water? No big deal! I'm sure NONE of us planned on drinking that water. Let's face it, if people swim in Utah Lake and live to tell the tale, we would surely survive low chlorine levels. It was a hard few days. I was overjoyed the next week when they re-opened it and we all swam and splashed around carelessly, working hard on our Jimmer dunks.

All was well until the Health Department came a couple weeks later closing the pool once again. This time for too high chlorine levels! You can never make them happy. It was sad because after that the pool closed for good for the rest of the year. It was still a pretty sight on late afternoons when I sat on the balcony of my second floor apartment, the water ripples mirrored on the windows around the Plaza. Summer ended, fall came, the pool still had water and the crisp leaves began to cover the surface. And then...it got ugly. I don't think I've ever seen a pool go from clear blue to neon green before. There had been some dirt already at the bottom of the pool from the previous summer, but you could hardly see it under the blanket of algae. Slowly the neon turned to a murky shade of puke green, covering not only the bottom of the pool but also the sides and even the outside edges. There were chunks of who knows what floating around. It stressed me out emotionally to look at it every time I stepped outside. Why the heck was it not being drained?! Management finally decided to put us all out of our misery and put the cover on -- but they never drained the water. It rained, it snowed, it hailed, the water on top of the cover got just as neon as it's partner in crime below. A sad sight indeed. Sushi (you know who you are) and I yelled at every pigeon who bathed in it, at all the stupid birds who drank from it...poor things. They most likely dropped dead before sundown, or grew extra limbs. I'm sure we heard tales of glow in the dark birds in the coming weeks. One can only hope Park Plaza brings all this madness to an end and decides to clean the pool in the near future. My heart can only take so much.

In other news, the school year is over, spring is here and that means Sunday strolls and picnics in the park! I have already met great people and am looking forward to new friendships. Though I am very sad that some of my dearest friends are gone for summer. They're out in California, Maryland, Spain, China and other such places that make me jealous at the simple mention of them. This past week, I was reflecting on the semester and the things I went through, things I could have done better, stuff that did and didn't work out and the sleepless nights over what now seem like meanigless things. What sticks out the most through all this are the amazing people I call my friends, my posse, amigos, the ones who gave of their time to let me know they cared. Things that made winter a bit more bearable/amazing include but are not limited to friend dinners, game nights, day/night hikes, Cocoa Bean outings, basketball games, dances, playing piano, being creeps, Edward, shooting and late night chats. To all who were part of this crazy thing I called life these past few months, I give my sincere thanks. I can truly say I love you all. Let me stop myself before I get melodramatic...here's to summer, new friends, old friends and the hope that we will all survive swimming in the ever threatening but refreshing waters of the Park Plaza pool. Cheers.