Playing with water.

It's been a while since I've blogged -- work, kids, family, illnesses and a touch of drama has made me distracted and choking down ideas I normally would have aired on this wide ether.
But this week I had some fun.
I got to plant my feet on the ground, grab a thick fire hose attached to a shiny red engine and squirt a powerful stream of water onto some random stuff in the training area in the back of a fire station. It almost lifted me off my feet. I had visions of being lifted up comically and dousing my colleagues in water - fortunately they had thought of that and someone added some heft to the back. For a moment, I felt light again, a distinct change from the way I had been feeling these past few weeks. My weeks of spending more time sitting at a desk, pushing papers around, typing stuff and sitting around meeting tables has slowed me down, filled out my bottom. My tailored pants are unforgiving and a stark reminder of the consequences of more calories in than out.
I am working at Mountain View Fire Department, admin section. The nuts and bolts of the job is not very exciting, but the environment is quite a change for a girl from Durban, South Africa.
The firemen, engineers, captains, investigators, inspectors, Chief and Marshall are all quite an experience for me. They have taken some getting used to and understanding, but I think I am finally getting the hang of this alternate universe. Mostly, they all take their work very seriously, and all seem to genuinely want to serve.
This week, the new staff got to tour around and poke our noses in where they don't really belong. The firehouses gleam, and the firemen's quarters are clean and neat. They do their own cleaning, cook their own food -- which yes, the buy with their own money -- and clean toilets and firetrucks. Their dorms are rudimentary, and they have a fairly large area where they push weights every day. These guys have to be strong to haul hefty victims out of burning buildings. It is a job requirement to be strong, fit and quick. Necessary for survival and success. And then I realized that this was precisely what was bothering me most about my spreading bottom. The need to be strong, fit and quick for survival.

I have spent my life being quick enough to dodge a "grabber" on the street, duck away from a flasher, slip past a drunken fumbler when I worked as a waitress, and more than once outrun a dangerous person. I have been quick, light on my feet and agile, as I was never strong enough to defend myself physically. When I needed to run like hell, I could and did. It made me stronger than the big guy, the sick guy, the crazy guy.
But now I live in a world slowed down, where no-one runs but kids, and ambling is the norm. Reflexes dull, sixth senses grow quiet, and the world seems more benign. I sometimes look at the world around me and wonder what will happen when disaster strikes -- when panic ensues, chaos, and the crazies, violent and opportunistic pop out of the cow-like bewildered crowd in our city.
Will I still be able to run like hell when I need to?

So I'm back on the treadmill -- just in case. I'm part of the city's disaster team now. And, was the playing with a firehose as much fun as it sounds? Hell, yeah!!