Ice, Ice, Baby

My Old Man and I had to turn down an invitation for a night of child-free bowling and beer drinking with some good friends last Saturday night. I had agreed to chaperone the annual ice skating party at school, and I would've felt like a heel backing down at the last minute. But, as is usual with chaperoning events such as dances and lock-ins, I was not especially excited.

Okay, maybe I was a little excited. I spent many days and evenings in my Wisconsin girlhood on the ice, both indoors and out. Every park in my Northern hometown had a rink during the winter months, and our local indoor rink was a hot spot for teenagers who'd already seen the movies at the two movie houses in town. (This was back before the mega-plexes hit small towns - it was a huge deal when a four screen theater opened up toward the end of high school.) I loved ice skating back then, and even had my own pair of white ice dancer skates with plaid flannel lining. (Where did those go?)

But even though I put "ice skating" on my list of Things to Do on the Prairie when I moved back to the Midwest after my LA stint (as careful readers will recall from my last post), in actually I haven't skated much since I've lived here. In fact, it had been almost ten years since I'd put on a pair of skates.

So I was a little excited. But I wasn't prepared for how much fun I was going to have. Chaperoning the skating party was a fucking blast! First of all, there was just the old exhilarating feeling of whizzing around the ice, the cold breeze pinking my cheeks and the fear of landing hard on my ass adding excitement to my every skate stroke. Then there was the vibe. It was so wholesome and cute and friendly! Everyone looks cute on ice skates. The wobbly people look cute. The confident people look cute. And all the kids were being so nice and congenial. Seniors were holding hands with freshmen, girls were holding hands with girls. Boys were even holding hands with boys. The dorkier kids all seemed really comfortable on the ice, and many of the cool kids were fairly unsteady - there was something so sweet about seeing that reversal. And watching the abler skaters advise and help steady the less able skaters was heartwarming.

I ended up skating the whole two hours of the event. The next day my thighs ached with the exertion, though at the time I was feeling no pain. As I left I was concocting plans to return with O. to teach him how to ice skate, and wondering whether they make strollers with blades instead of wheels so that Roo can come along too.

And today, the first day of my five-day Thanksgiving break, in between lunch at my mom's place and a trip to the bank, I popped by the ice rink and skated by myself for about 45 minutes. I just had to go back and get some more of that wholesome-ass fun.

These May Come In Handy Later

Okay, another meme. Some details altered slightly to protect my real identity, but mostly this is the real deal.

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Patricia Gordon (Dude! I know someone named Patricia Gordon!)

NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad )
Gordon Patrick (Sounds more like a professor)

STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4
letters of your first name)
Elmeja (pronounced “el-mAY-hah,” I believe)

DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color, fav city)
Burgundy Madison (Very swank)

SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, most elegant-sounding city you’ve lived in)
Anne Los Angeles (not bad)

SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav alcoholic drink, add "THE" to
the beginning)
The Green Cabernet (yech!)

GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie):
Pistachio Mandelbrot (I wouldn't last a minute on the street)

ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Catface Green or Blue Springfield (since I have two cats, I chose a former house street and my current work street)

PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Daschund Albion (bow wow!)

Ten Things I Was Wrong About

1. Beer: I thought it was pissy, bitter, and thin. But then I spent a year abroad in Ireland and discovered Guinness. In the little town where I lived, the three pubs were the only fun going most evenings, and I learned to love hot whiskey and room temperature stout. Guinness was everything that cheap American beer was not: creamy, full-bodied, and delicious. And it lacked one of the main things I realized I did not like about your average pilsner: carbonation. After falling in love with Guinness, it was only a matter of time before I moved on to porters, bochs, and brown ales. Yum.

2. Sleep: I used to be able to get by on 5 hours a night, at least for a few nights in a row, and I believed that less sleep equaled more life. Now I know that sleep is one of the best things about life and that I'm worthless without at least seven and a half hours. But I prefer eight.

3. Flared jeans: My favorite pair of pants in second grade were electric blue polyester bell bottoms that came with a matching butterfly print sweater. Though I loved them at seven, by high school, I had repudiated my seventies childhood fashion sensibilities and pledged my devotion to peg-legged Zenas, casting a cold eye on the flares of my youth. When flares started coming back in in the nineties, I silently resolved I'd never give in and go back to flared pants. But then I came across a pair of purple jeans at the local hipster thrift shop, and when I tried them on, I noticed that the hems were not merely boot cut, but a bit flared. They were six bucks, though, so I bought them anyway. They soon became my favorite pants. Since then many pairs of flared jeans have found their way into my closet and my heart. I know "skinny jeans" have made a big comeback, but I'm sticking to my flares. I love them because they're flattering to people of all body types. With skinny jeans you're taking your chances if you're too skinny, or not skinny enough.

4. My town: When I moved here from the big city to go to graduate school, I assumed I'd be bored and cloistered. I actually made a list of things I planned to do to while away my non-studying time. (It included: ice skate, make my own yogurt, bake bread, and quilt - all so quaint, so Midwestern. I did a bit of ice skating my first year here; otherwise, the list was a bust.) When I got here, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a fine place to party and an excellent place to start a rock and roll band. Still, I definitely planned to move away some day. When I shacked up with my Old Man, I began to appreciate the town more. Then I found my one-of-a-kind teaching job, and my love for my town increased. Once I had a kid, I discovered so much more to love about this small but cultured, low-key, and affordable hamlet.

5. My dear: When I first met my Old Man, I thought he was arrogant. I soon realized he was just shy and socially awkward. Later, I figured out he was the love of my life.

6. Kimya: At first, her music drove me up a tree. Now, I think she's a brilliant songwriter with a sharp wit and a heart of gold.

7. Black licorice: As a kid, I disliked black licorice and would only eat red licorice. Now I realize that there's no such thing as red licorice. Black licorice is the only true licorice. Call the other stuff what you will - red vines, Twizzlers - but don't insult the pungent glory of real licorice by calling it red licorice. (White chocolate, same to you.)

8. Feral Mom: When I first met her, she appeared to be a soft spoken Irish lass with winsome curls and a collection of especially pretty sweaters, and I took her at face value. She just seemed nice. Boy was I wrong. When I got to know her, I found out that she was so much more than just nice: she was a foul mouthed, dirty minded, chain smoking, beer swilling hellion. I liked her so much more. She quit smoking and had a couple of cute kids, but she's still as raw and as rock as ever.

9. Yoga: I used to think that yoga was all about stretching, relaxing, and finding your happy place. Now I know it's about getting my ass kicked by a domineering woman who flies to India for two months out of every year to get her ass kicked by an eighty-six year old Indian man.

10. TV's Funniest Home Videos: I once considered this total time-wasting television drivel, lowest common denominator stuff. Then O. turned me on to it, insisting that we watch "that show with the silly videos" every time we were home and unoccupied during its magic time slot. Now I realize that this show is pure comic gold, a motherlode of slapstick humor and schadenfreude.


There you have it. This is a meme, so if you're so inclined, go forth and list.

Very good!

I am a happy woman today, and a proud American.

Hopeful and Scared as Shit

I don't bite my nails, but today I think I might start. I belive that Obama will win. All the indications seem to point that way. But I won't be able to breathe easy 'til it's all over. They say "once bitten, twice shy." Well, I've been bitten hard in a very tender place the last two major elections, and there's no telling how many uncorrupted elections it will take to make me feel safe in early November during even years.

With apologies to my Republican brothers and sisters, it's not just that McCain is scary. I actually used to respect John McCain, but as Feral Mom eloquently illustrates, he's sold out or gone mad or both. And it's not just that his running mate is so underqualified that she makes Dan Quayle look like Winston Churchill. (And so annoying she drives me up a wall. And I'm from Wisconsin! Some of my favorite people have folksy accents not unlike hers. It's not the accent. It's so much more.) No, the horror of an imagined McCain-Palin administration is just part of what's at stake.

What's really at stake is that we have an astoundingly good candidate in Barack Obama, someone who is intelligent, ethical, even tempered, thoughtful, and has a great deal of relevant experience. Someone who knows the Constitution. Someone who takes complex and realistic positions on difficult issues. Someone who has maintained his positions and his poise over the course of a hard faught primary season and campaign season. I could go on and on about why I love Obama, but I have a class to teach in fifteen minutes. But suffice to say, that if we don't elect him, I think I may lose all hope for the good sense and native intelligence of my fellow Americans as a group.

I voted. And now I'm waiting, rationing my fingernails so they last 'til the verdict is in.