A Perfect Day for Swimming and Engaging Parties

I had a busy afternoon/evening yesterday.

After lounging around my apartment in the morning, I went to the gym, raced home & showered, and drove over to Shauna's boyfriend's parents' house in order to attend a pool party in her honor.

She finally got her visa to Iran and leaves tomorrow to study for the rest of the summer... so it was a bit of a bon voyage celebration.

I wasn't sure if I was going to swim because I had to attend Alex & Anna's engagement BBQ a few hours after Shauna's party (and didn't really want to drive in the other direction back home to shower & change again), but in the end I couldn't resist taking a plunge. After all, it was 104 degrees here yesterday, and it felt just about exactly that hot.

We lounged around for a while and then engaged in a spirited game of water polo. Shauna and I were team captains, and I am proud to say that I picked the best team because we destroyed Shauna's team (which consisted of 2 girls, a 13-year old, and 2 grown men versus my team of 1 girl -- me -- and 4 grown men).

After the game, we chilled out in the shade...

This is the guest of honor, Shauna, and her friend Marissa, who she used to work with at the Mexican Tile Store. (BTW, I took three photos of them, and Marissa had her eyes closed in every single one, which she says is a common theme in her photographic life.)

Here is one of my teammates (Faran) with my former academic colleague, Rachael...

Faran just arrived here from Iran and barely speaks English, which explains why he didn't understand any of the directives I was giving him on the water polo field.

Here is Tamara (also from my department) and her husband, Keith...


And here is Faroz, Rouzbeh (Shauna's BF) and his little brother, Ramteen...

Ramteen was a very aggressive little water polo player. He attempted to distract me by screaming like a woman every time I tried to get the ball away from him. Too bad that lame tactic didn't work.

After hanging out for a while with the Persians and the other associated riff-raff (myself included), I decided to just change into the other clothes I'd brought with me and show up at Anna and Alex's house with a faint chlorine scent. Luckily, they never noticed, as I was smart enough to bring some lemon-ginger lotion with me to hide the smell of my recent pool activities.

Here's the happy couple... A & A...

Congratulations, you guys!!!!

Earlier in the evening, Anna's sister, her friend, Toia, and I had fun playing with Anna's pet tortoises on her patio...

This is Turbo at the water dish we forced upon him.

And here's Turbo's brother, Jet...

... who was clearly jetting off to nowhere, as he sat in this corner staring at the stucco wall for what seemed like an hour. We started to wonder if he was retarded. I even hung a leaf of lettuce on his head to get him to move, which didn't work.

Later on, a group of us (mostly Alex's friends... one of whom was a French bakery bread chef!... I harangued the poor man with about a million bread related questions) hung out chatting on the patio till nearly midnight... until a wolf spider jumped off the roof onto Alex's friend Josh, who jumped up so fast out of his chair I thought he was doing a dance move.

I determined then that it was a good time to go home.

And that was my day.