This is a small town.
Today Duchess "tried out" for one of the local fancy swim teams.* While I was standing around waiting to write down our contact info, I noticed a mother and daughter speaking French behind me. I surreptitiously studied them, and realized that they were there for the beginning of Duchess's swim career 5 years ago; I had sat by the pool for a week with brand-new Skipper, chatting with the mom while the daughter participated in the same swim lesson as Duchess. I talked to them briefly (the mom is one of these super-physical people who wants to hold your hand while she's talking to you, which I find a little uncomfortable but also very endearing), and discovered that the daughter went to the school that Skipper now attends, before moving on to the middle school that Skipper and Duchess will both attend, AND that the mom is an assistant teacher at the same school where our lovable summer nanny teaches. In Portland, it's really more like 2 degrees of separation.
*They don't have space at most of the sites, and they don't actually kick anybody off the team once they're on, so it's more like an in-person application for the waitlist. However, Duchess is not particularly interested in escalating her swimming at this point, and Cook and I are not interested in adding another activity that requires time, money, and energy, so it was pretty much just a reconnaissance trip, in case she decides to quit kung fu and go for swimming in a serious way next year. It turned out to be a good reconnaissance trip, as the event included open swim time, so Duchess and Skipper both cavorted joyfully for an hour in the pool, and we even got some free pizza on our way out.
*They don't have space at most of the sites, and they don't actually kick anybody off the team once they're on, so it's more like an in-person application for the waitlist. However, Duchess is not particularly interested in escalating her swimming at this point, and Cook and I are not interested in adding another activity that requires time, money, and energy, so it was pretty much just a reconnaissance trip, in case she decides to quit kung fu and go for swimming in a serious way next year. It turned out to be a good reconnaissance trip, as the event included open swim time, so Duchess and Skipper both cavorted joyfully for an hour in the pool, and we even got some free pizza on our way out.
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