Pool renewed

—Yesterday (Thursday, November 19th) Yr Fthfl Srvnt revisited Canandaigua's YMCA swimming-pool, first time in six or seven months.
I day-dreamed I’d meet ***** or ****** ****, the two pretty ladies who a few years ago began my recovery from a dreadful childhood.
That YMCA had been closed due to COVID-19; but re-opened perhaps a month ago.
Neither lady is gorgeous, but both are attractive; both are in their 60s.
I don’t know who actually was first; they both were about the same time.
***** said hello to me by name for no reason whatsoever. That counteracts “No pretty lady will talk to you, a legacy of my early childhood.
****** ****, an easy smiler, smiled at me, thus counteracting “No pretty lady will I ever smile at you!
Then she wanted to meet my new dog. Mind blowing! “No pretty lady will hang out with you!”
Enjoy my company? Impossible! I am DISGUSTING!
Thankfully, neither lady was there; which probably was better, since my new-found confidence with pretty ladies seems to be withering.
Yrs Trly has befriended so many pretty ladies since those first two.
I also no longer have my four-legged chick-magnet, who fearlessly dragged me into meeting gorgeous women = girls I previously woulda avoided.
“Oh what a pretty dog! Can I pet him?”
Here I am talking to yet another pretty girl!
And I found that talking to a pretty girl — just talking — goes over extremely well. They like that I’m not “hittin’ on ‘em” = trying to get physical.
No touchy-feely!
All we’re doing is just shootin’-the-breeze; and women seem to love talking = a simple exchange of emotions, whereby we trigger each other.
So thankfully ***** and ****** **** weren’t there. The women who were, I could talk to without fear.
One was *********, an old friend who years ago co-led a “grief-share” I attended shortly after my wife died.
Another was *******, a life-long widow in her 80s I befriended some time ago for whatever reason. (She has sparkling eyes.)
Then there was ****, a lifeguard at that swimming-pool, who I didn’t recognize because she was wearing a mask, plus her hair was different.
“Didn’t you used to do the steps, when I was here on Saturday afternoons?” she asked.
“Do I know you?” I asked. “If so I don’t remember your name.”
“****,” she said.
“Eyes,” I told her. Her eyes were pretty, and I wish I’d had the nerve I had two weeks ago: I woulda said her eyes were pretty. I did say something, but it lacked the self-confidence I had two weeks ago.
The next time I see her I will try harder = I will try to have what little confidence I seem to have gained.
She’s not gorgeous, but she has pretty eyes. And it seems I been able to get away with telling girls they have pretty eyes. No one has smacked me yet.
“It’s these masks,” I told her. “I shop that supermarket down in town and eyes are everywhere, many of them gorgeous.”
Like “look what we been missing!” I say to myself.
“Eyes are the window to the soul,” another lady-friend tells me.
****** **** also happens to be my aquacise-instructor, which means I’m gonna meet her again, even if ***** retired, when I restart that aquacise class.
This is frightening to me, since my withering confidence will radiate.
****** **** has always been important, being one of the first, if not the first, to lead me away from my sordid childhood.
“No pretty lady will ever smile at you,” yet she did.

• My “chick-magnet” was “Killian,” a rescue Irish-Setter, my most recent dog. He made age-11, and was my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely friendly dog. I had to put him down over two months ago — yet another dog lost to canine cancer.