Susan Senator

I spent a long day on the Cape yesterday with just my sister Laura and my parents. Laura was up there for a pediatrics conference.

I got there in no time, marveling at how different traffic flows during the week than on the weekend. I had very little hip/knee pain from the drive, a sign that the PT and all the stretches are working. I certainly have not been doing less. The other night I belly danced for a half hour and also had no ill effects. (Laura had sent me a costume for an anniversary present for Ned and me — perfect idea — so I tried it out. Plus, I now have the music from my class on CD, so I am ready to rock — or shimmy.)

Ned has become just a little blase about the dancing. That makes me feel a little sad. I work so hard isolating this muscle group or that, straining to get it exactly like Lolisha taught us, and I see it is really looking right, but to him, it’s “always the same.” When he said that I pouted and took my stuff into the dining room to practice. Soon, he followed me — with the laptop, of course. Mistress Laptop. Better, apparently, than a lap dance, or at least, the veil dance. But he was appropriately appreciative.

So, no ill effects for my bod or my marriage.

Got to the Cape in record time, as I said, and spilled onto the beach by around 11, with Laura. We went right in, even though the temp was supposedly 57 degrees. It was so hot, like a fever, especially after the bike ride there. I was wearing a bright red bikini, and Laura was wearing a blue striped one with a bandeau top. It felt like old times, when we’d go to the beach together as teenagers, (looking for guys, which we did not do this time, at least, not obviously) and Mom and Dad would join us later. Laura looks incredibly young and fit, exactly as she did way back when, except for the silver threaded through her hair. The two of us do exactly the same kind of workouts (although she has never belly danced and I don’t do spinning) and we eat the same diet. I converted her to Atkins a few years ago, so now we share that religion. We always talk about what other people eat and how boring Atkins is, but how any weight loss regimen hurts in some way. With Atkins, you’re never hungry, at least. But soooo bored. We gossip about what people eat and what we are stuck eating like some picked-upon minority group, the anti-Carbivores.

We floated on the (fairly flat) ocean for a while, talking about food, our parents, our kids, our husbands, our sex lives, our jobs, and musing on how we were the farthest ones out, therefore the ones most likely to get picked off by Mr. Jaws. Even with wimpy waves, I lost an earring, and she said, “You know, Sue, shiny things attract them.” But how could I be on the beach without earrings? It’s part of the look. Plus, I reasoned, you need to take some risks in this life. Besides, I was not the one in a wetsuit, looking very seal-like, the way she was.

But there I was, with only one silver hoop now. I had to take it out and go around plain Jane. At least I still had traces of makeup.

We had heard that just last week, in Chatham, a large head was seen rising from the water, and bit a seal right in half. “It could only be a Great White,” I said reverently. A moment of silence. Chatham is really close to where we swim. A frisson of delicious fear went through us. I turned around and went right back in. My seal sister joined me, of course.