{"id":474,"date":"2007-02-20T04:48:53","date_gmt":"2007-02-20T10:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/02\/20\/y-and-y-not\/"},"modified":"2007-02-20T04:48:53","modified_gmt":"2007-02-20T10:48:53","slug":"y-and-y-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=474","title":{"rendered":"Y and Y Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my new years’ plans is to get, at long last, into some sort of shape (other than blob).\u00a0<\/p>\n

To that end, and with the generous assistance of one of my company’s benefit features, I signed my family up in the YMCA last month.\u00a0 I’ve been hitting the gym every other day for the past four weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I’ve been doing some comparing and contrasting.\u00a0 Like White Castles and Taco Bells, YMCAs in the suburbs and the city are very, very different.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Depending on the time of day and which kids I’m hauling, I’ll go to any of four or five different YMCAs.\u00a0 Woodbury and Shoreview are huge, and very new, and with ample space and activity for kids.\u00a0 (The downtown Y is also big and new, although not very kid-friendly).\u00a0 If it’s just me (or my daughter and I), though – which is about half the time – I go to the Midway Y.\u00a0 Unlike the others, the Midway Y is older; it may date from the fifties, and certainly no later than the mid-sixties.\u00a0 It is immaculately kept-up, of course, but you can tell it’s an older place.<\/p>\n

And it’s got two things about it (besides its pretty excellent weight room and close-to-Mitch location) via which it beats the tar out of its suburban cousins:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A steam room.\u00a0 Not sure when steam rooms fell out of favor, but the newer “Y”s never <\/em>have them.\u00a0 During the last cold snap – and moreso during my little round of the crud last week – the steam room was a life saver.\u00a0 And it’s not an anemic little damp-sauna, like Bally, nosirreebob.\u00a0 It works up a head of steam worthy of Cool Hand Luke, <\/em>enough to conceal half of the Ventura Administration.\u00a0 Gloriousl.<\/li>\n
  2. More importantly yet, the locker rooms.\u00a0 Most YMCAs have three; Men, Women, and Family (for people who are bringing kids younger than five).\u00a0 Few things are quite as miserable as sharing a locker room with the screaming, screeching, snotnosed, Ritalin-guzzling little spoiled brats that the endless rows of minivans scoop from the dreary, beige suburban wastes and disgorge into the gym every evening.\u00a0 On the other hand, the Midway Y has five <\/em>lockers; family, plus two for boys and girls 6-18, and the most glorious luxury of all, two for men and women over 18.\u00a0 Sweet escape.\u00a0 It’d only be slightly <\/em>more luxurious if they issued smoking jackets and allowed cigars.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That is all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of my new years’ plans is to get, at long last, into some sort of shape (other than blob).\u00a0 To that end, and with the generous assistance of one of my company’s benefit features, I signed my family up in the YMCA last month.\u00a0 I’ve been hitting the gym every other day for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}