Day 2 (Thursday, October 16th, 2003)

California University, outdoor swimming facility.  CU’s head coach of the women’s swim team is Randy Jackson.  Their star talent is Trish Peverall.  Tim is the assistant coach.  It is later implied in Episode 106 that the team nickname is Bluejays or Blue Jays (Creighton University uses the former, Toronto’s Major League Baseball team uses the latter).  Trish is complimented for her backstroke with Randy mentioning, “USC,” as an upcoming opponent.  Presumably that’s the University of Southern California, or Southern Cal as opposed to the University of South Carolina which is further away.  It could be implied that CU is meant to serve as an analog for UCLA, but UCLA will be mentioned by name by Alice later this episode.  So it is probably best to assume that CU is a completely different school and likely a private one that is not to be confused with the University of California, in Berkley (home of the Golden Bears).

Trish has extra stroke training scheduled for tomorrow (Friday, October 17, 2003) after her physics class.  Also, it is made clear almost immediately that Trish isn’t the best student as she has struggled with her physics midterm and is hoping that Tim can go with her to talk with Durst (the physics teacher) tomorrow morning about getting another crack at it.  Unfortunately for Trish, Tim will be busy with Jenny, with Tim mentioning them going car shopping, which will apparently yield no positive results as Jenny is car-less for Season 1 (aside from using Tim’s Firebird).  Also worth noting is Trish’s disappointment in Jenny moving to West Hollywood to be with Tim, implying an attraction.  Tim still offers to speak with Durst after practice tomorrow, but the ultimate desired effect for Trish is lost.  This is the moment that forever changes Trish Peverall though it is mostly backburner in terms of the overall narrative.  Randy finds humor in all of this.

To further pinpoint where we’re at here in terms of timeline, the NCAA swimming schedule for the 2004 season started in October, 2003 and ended with the NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships in East Meadow, NY on March 25-27, 2004.  The Pacific-10 Conference to which CU will be mentioned as being a part of had their Conference Championships from March 4-7, 2004.  Combine that with the midterms and that means this narrative begins in October, 2003, right around the time in which the Swimming & Diving season has started and the Midterms have just finished for the Fall (Autumn) Semester.

At The Planet, Bette and Tina now have 1 or 2 days to find a suitable donor.  Something is apparently skipped in the dialogue before Bette leaves as Shane’s, “Why don’t you just trim it,” almost seems forced into the conversation about butt-waxing even though it turns out Shane is talking about the “bush” which will lead to the Bush Confidence lecture to Dana.  Also before Bette leaves is Alice announcing her grand plan to get a donor for Bette and Tina, which is a party, “this Saturday Night,” at Bette and Tina’s house.  With Alice saying “this Saturday” instead of tomorrow, that places Day 1 as a Wednesday and Day 2 as a Thursday.

Day 3 (Friday, October 17th, 2003)

We skip Jenny and Tim’s car shopping adventure as well as Tim wanting to help Trish out and Trish probably not caring to get to the only scene to take place on this day.  Maybe all that was filmed, but left out for time considerations.  Either way, it’s pivotal in terms of Tim’s character as will be revealed later in Season 1.

Jenny meets Tina with a fence in between them.  Tina offers Jenny some rosemary and the two begin to talk.  Jenny mentions a short story she wrote titled Thus Spoke Sarah Shuster.  The story is about Jenny’s Sarah analog being a student.  If the story is recent then Jenny has recently graduated from college, Class of 2003 at the University of Chicago, which means there is a high probability that when Jenny and Tim dated in college, it was while Tim was working as an assistant coach and Jenny as a student.  This little layer will pay off later in Season 1 for Tim and Trish.  Tina also considers going back to school for a new career (“maybe in a couple of years”), but it never goes beyond this conversation.  5 men walk by and Tina points them out as being part of a Gay Dads group that meets once a week, “over on Ogden,” which for them would be within a very tolerable walking distance.  The only issue would be finding a path that would allow them to cut through without having to walk all the way up to Fountain Avenue, unless they’re all returning from their meeting which means they would be taking the same path Jenny did from Laurelwood Farms Market.

What officially makes this Day 3 is Tina inviting Jenny (and Tim) to their party “tomorrow night,” which is to be Saturday.