Ice Skating

On Saturday we went ice skating. It didn’t seem like ice skating weather at all–in the 40s, and sunny, but hell, it was January, afterall. January: The Ice Skating Month, am I right?  We called the rink to make sure there was…ice, and there was,  so we went.

The rink was filled with kids, lots of them. Pushing chairs. This rink gives plastic chairs to kids to hang on to as they get used to their skates.

The chairs kept them upright, made them braver. But it’s hard to find your center of gravity when you are hunched over a chair, so I questioned the advisability of these props.

It was fun, though. and I enjoyed the feeling of gliding along, but I got bored fairly quickly. At about the 20th time around the rink, I wondered how many more times I could go around and it still continue to be fun.

Once I had gotten over the newness of the skates, and remembered how to do this, how to stay upright and how to go faster, there was really nothing left.

Except to look at the sky, which was beautiful, all pink and purple as the sun set. Or look at the kids in their various lumps and piles of fallen-downness.

I winced as some of them wiped out pretty spectacularly right in front of me, and then admired their grit as they just got up and kept going.

I had to keep an eagle-eye on the little whipper-snappers (boys) who were speeding around at a warp speed, coats open, some of them with helmuts on, hell bent for leather. They were on some kind of mission, so the best thing I could do was stay out of their way.

Skating at this rink was like driving on an insane highway where people were in big mash-ups of accidents, others were creeping along in the berm, the handicapped were pushing their chairs, the speed demons were changing lanes unpredictably, and there were impromptu meetings of tween girls in the middle of traffic, gossiping about the whole scene.

Then there were the safety patrol people in their yellow vests skating around, picking kids up, asking them if they were okay.

I skated around for an hour, wondering about ice skating: What would make it more fun? Lessons?  Learning to skate backwards or pirouette, or to be so comfortable on skates that I could skate with my hands in my pockets and just maneuver gracefully around like I saw some fellow doing?  To feel comfortable and in command on the ice, to be able to skate as easily as walk? Yeah. That would be fun.

G said I should take lessons.  Maybe if this rink were closer I might consider it, but no. I have too much on my plate as it is. It was just a thought.

After an hour we left and went to The Cellar where I drank a lovely new Pinot and we ate half-price appetizers, and got home early enough for G to watch the late game and for me to pin more stuff onto my Pinterest boards.

Lovely day.