Nobody Knows Anything

They had me at “From the guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead.”

Nicholas Angel is the Supercop on London’s Metropolitan Police Force. He has a four hundred percent higher arrest record than anyone else and he can do everything a cop needs to better than anyone else. Needless to say, everyone on the force hates him — he’s making them look bad. So Angel gets shipped out to the picturesque village of Sandford, the sort of place that wins Village of the Year awards and where nothing ever happens. Or…does it?

Angel immediately starts applying his Supercop ways to a town where the biggest problem appears to be a seriously bad production of Romeo and Juliet. Angel’s new partner is Danny Butterman, a shlubby guy who’s the son of the town’s amiable police captain. He’s also got a serious jones for American cop movies, like Bad Boys II and Point Blank, and he’s wondering what it’s like to be a Supercop, guns blazing, taking down criminals. Needless to say, he’s gonna find out.

The movie manages to be a fun parody of American cop movies and quaint British villages all at the same time. The third act, which involves more guns and ammo than have probably ever existed in Great Britain (including pre-peace settlement Northern Ireland), is utterly hilarious. I loved Shaun of the Dead and this is a great followup — however Edgar Wright (writer and director), Simon Pegg (writer and star), and Nick Frost (star) put these insane things together, it works great.

The other I got an e-mail telling me that my play has been accepted into the New Works Festival at Foothill College! I am so thrilled you can hardly imagine. I’m going to have a play produced this year! (Considering one of my goals for the year has been, “Get my work out in front of people,” I’d say I can make a small check next to that entry in the ledger.)

The New Works Festival (here’s the info about last year’s show) presents an evening of 6 to 8 10-15 minute plays. Rehearsals start in June and the show is produced sometime in August.

Needless to say, as the time approaches, I will be putting up banners all over the place for anyone who might be interested in attending what I think will be a fine evening of theater. I’ve seen most of the plays that are in the show — the best thing about the Playwriting class is that every week the writers bring in pages and actors get up in front of the class to act them out, which brilliant and useful when you want to see what works and what doesn’t — and these plays are great (if I don’t mind saying so myself, which apparently I don’t).

Now the actual work of getting my play into the best shape it can be begins! Woooooo!

I joined the Y four years ago. I needed a place to go during the day, the kids loved the kids’ area, and it had all the workout facilities I could ask for: cardio machines and free weights (and Nautilus, but I don’t use the machines). It didn’t have everything in the world, but it had everything I needed to make a decent workout, and the kids were happy, so I was happy. It was $50 a month, and the kids’ area was free. (Sadly, it no longer is. Now it’s $25. Per year.)

One thing the Y didn’t have was a kids’ pool. It does have a pool — a big ol’ indoor pool that’s great for laps, but not conducive to the kind of playing around kids like to do. That I liked to do, every summer, at Eisenhower Park. As I remember it, my mom dropped us off in the morning and then came to get us some time around 7 at night. I understand this may not be the way it was, but it sure feels like it. And Sophia, when she gets near water, cannot get enough. I’ve often joked that her goal in life is to become a mermaid. Whenever she has access to a pool, she gets in and then refuses to get out for love nor money nor blue lips. Simon likes the water a lot too, but he hasn’t had swimming lessons, so he’s much more fearful.

There are three deluxe clubs in our area. We went by one, the JCC, and really liked it — very fancy, very state of the art, and it has a kids’ pool and a regular pool. Except the one day we went there on a guest pass we were reprimanded because we weren’t in the water with our kids. Until the age of 8 (or older? I can’t remember) a parent must be in the water with the kid at all time.

Not. Happening. I will sit poolside for hours. I will dive in if the slightest thing is wrong. I will not stay in the water for untold hours.

So, we didn’t join the JCC. And last year Sophia complained about not being able to swim.

There’s another club, quite nice, in the area, and I took the kids there for the tour. The kids’ reactions to a place are very important: there is simply no percentage in it for me to force them to go to a place they don’t like. This second club had three pools, including one just for kids, but they didn’t like it. They kept asking to leave. They really didn’t like the kids’ area.

We didn’t join that club either.

Since summer is upon us again, I started thinking about pools again. The local high school has swimming lessons at its pool during the summer, so I signed the kids up for a session of those. And evidently the pool has some free time built into its schedule, but who wants to look at a schedule for a pool?

There was one last club in our area to look at, but I’d been fearful of even checking it out. I nicknamed it “Club Swanky.” For one thing, they don’t even post the rates on the website. Which says one thing to me: “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” I bit the bullet and went there one day with Simon. We got the full tour: the cardio area, the machines area, the free weights area. The women’s showers (with nice fluffy towels, and shampoo, and conditioner, and hair dryers, and a sauna, and…) The three pools: the adult pool, the “family” pool, and the “wading” pool. Swimming classes, tae kwan do classes, every aerobic class you can think of. The yoga studio, the spinning studio, the dance class taught by a guy who used to be on Broadway. The poolside cafe, which has wi-fi (one of my first questions).

Simon loved the place. He wanted to know if he could get into the pool right then.

The membership director laid the prices on me and I thought, Well, it is very nice. Nice amenities. It would not suck to work out in those workout rooms, each of which is about the size of the total Y workout facilities. She handed me the many, many forms to fill out (including the separate applications — and application fees — for husband and wife, not to mention proof of marriage or domestic partnership), and a whole bunch of money and signatures later, we were members.

You can’t invest that much money in something and not wonder, Was this a good idea? Is this going to be worth it?

We’ve been members here a week and I think we’ve come here five times. Every day Sophia says, “Can we go to the Club now?” She is a fixture in the pool. She wants to take tae kwan do. We keep running into people we know — this is clearly one of the top social spots of the area. (Yesterday I ran into a guy I last saw about, oh, 20 years ago.)

If only they had electric plugs near the chaises longues near the pool, my life would be perfect.

‘Cause I have the feeling I’m going to be spending a lot of time here at Club Swanky this summer.