I'm surprised about Target. Wasn't it just a couple of years ago they weren't letting the Salvation Army set up a Christmas collection kettle outside their stores?

Eh, I suspect that the real ideological point to the donation is "supports gigantor corporate interests in Minnesota". It generally is.

Ginger, that's the same reason my brother and I ended up in swim lessons every summer from the time we were tots. My mom actually started me at 3, but at the end of the summer, I discovered the water was over my head and freaked.the.fuck.out. She couldn't get me back to lessons for a couple years.

The ridiculous thing is, her mother? Swam regularly and taught all the other kids to swim. But it just didn't take with my mom (I think there were mother-daughter issues there. She also was my mom's math teacher and that didn't go well, either.) My mom is still not comfortable in the water. Which is why next summer, D's getting swimming lessons when he visits.

I used a shampoo and conditioner sample tonight and um...I think it shares the crack ingredients with aveda. Because I might have to wash my hair again if Loki doesn't stop mauling my head. It is also mens cologne smelly, which is annoying.

I've never been comfortable in the water (I've been wearing glasses since I was five, and being rendered unable to see more than six inches in front of my face did not endear the aquatic environment to me). I still learned to swim, and I've just started taking Ryan to swimming lessons. (He makes a very cute water baby, and was just about used to it by the end of the first lesson.)

It's interesting that the article about drownings said that kids who can't swim often have parents who can't swim. My mother can't swim and is afraid of the water, so she had my sister and me in swimming lessons at the Y pretty much the day we were old enough because, she said, "I couldn't save you."

That's exactly what my mom said. Mom was raised on a farm with no local watering holes, no access to a community pool, and Catholic schools with no pools, so she never learned. At least, not until all of us kids did, and then she finally took a few beginner classes at the Y when she was in her 40s, so now she can get in the water, dogpaddle across the pool, and get her head under water for a few seconds before she panics.

My mother can't swim and is afraid of the water, so she had my sister and me in swimming lessons at the Y pretty much the day we were old enough because, she said, "I couldn't save you."

Yeah, same with us. I was one of those tossed in the pool babies. In fact, my mother taught me to swim, in part. She just couldn't do it herself, because she was scared of having her face underwater. But she wasn't going to let that get in the way of us.

She's better with the water now, much, but she'll never love it. She's a floater, not a swimmer.

Because I might have to wash my hair again if Loki doesn't stop mauling my head.

Amarna loves to chew my hair if I either don't shampoo after swimming or have my hair colored. Either one of those drives her bonkers and she must gnaw.

(I've been wearing glasses since I was five, and being rendered unable to see more than six inches in front of my face did not endear the aquatic environment to me).

I'm blind as a bat without my glasses, too, but since I really only swim in pools, not being to see detail doesn't really matter. I use goggles when I'm doing laps just so I can stay in my lane. If I ever went ocean diving/snorking, I'd see if I could afford a prescription mask like the Hugh Grant character in Notting Hill had.

Aveda or chlorine make Lokes crazy. I can tell if I didn't shower long after swimming when he starts nibbling my toes or the (ACK) back of my thighs or shoulders.

ita, is your mother originally from Jamaica?

I'm super comfortable in water, and I'm still a floater more than a swimmer!

Eh, I suspect that the real ideological point to the donation is "supports gigantor corporate interests in Minnesota". It generally is.

And this is why single-issue voting is difficult for people.