A Numbat, or a Musky-Rat Kangaroo

Barton Springs Pool Early Morning Swim Report

All this week I asked the alarm on my watch to shake me awake at 4:30 AM, as of this morning officially a failed experiment since my marsupial brain merely turned it off & went back to sleep for fifteen minutes. (That might be a zoologically incorrect metaphor; I have just looked it up and the only diurnal marsupial is a numbat. So my numbat brain: that sounds about right.)

When I went out the door at 5:15, it was 75 degrees, occasioning a milestone: the first ugh of the season.

At the pool I took my usual long path to the water—I’m afraid of walking down stairs in the dark—and saw the Egyptian geese by the pool, Mama & Papa Goose standing guard, the four Goose children between them on the concrete, asleep. A fine swim, though one guy was swimming so determinedly and quickly without taking any sighting strokes that it took all my effort to get out of the way, and I said, “Look out! Look out!” as he passed me—though of course he couldn’t hear me: his ears were underwater. I also think he should look inward.

My last length it was light out. Three buff topless men stood in the shallows, hands on hips. Anyone who didn’t know might think they were posing as superheroes, hoping to be admired for their admitted magnificence, but I knew: the water is cold. It takes a moment. They dove in just before I passed, and I could taste the perfume off their bodies—deodorant or lotion—as the water washed it off them & towards me.