Honestly, I should've known better. During our first noteworthy snow of the season, we had MAJOR icing problems after the wet snow went through its refreeze during the night. My friend Care (one of the participants during yesterday's ice skating extravaganza) happened to be staying with me during that time, and ... how should I put this ... we had a difficult time navigating the city's icy sidewalks. Neither of us fell on the city's icy steps (or sidewalks, or streets), but I think that was just an act of God.
Take, for instance, the evening when Care and I decided to walk up to my little corner market to get a bottle of wine. We almost killed ourselves on the way there and back. There were patches of visible ice, but then there was also the dreaded black ice. Anyway, we were doing our own form of ice skating in our sneakers. The most comical part was getting back to my house, which apparently rests in the middle of a slight down slope on our sidewalk. I literally stood at the top of said sidewalk and just stood there with my arms out as I ... slid down toward my townhouse's door. It went more smoothly than I'd expected until I actually started to reach my door. Then, I didn't know how to stop myself and get over to my actual front door. Thankfully (grace be to God), there happens to be some shrubbery near that door. So, I grabbed onto the bush, manhandled it as I somehow stayed on my feet, and then used it as leverage to reach the snow next to my door (which I could actually stand on without falling), at which time I was finally able to open my door and lunge inside. Care then repeated my steps and also successfully reached my house. Needless to say, we opened that bottle of wine almost immediately once we'd made it safely inside.
My point in telling you about this comical adventure is to set up yesterday's planned trip to the ice rink. Again, I really don't know what we were thinking. But it's our spring break, and in lieu of tropical beaches and sunshine, we've apparently decided to relive our childhoods (next up? Bowling). That, and I remembered that I used to love ice skating (and was fairly good at it. Skating around without any falls, doing the one leg arabesque thing ... I could handle the ice fairly well). At first, when asked how long it'd been since I'd actually gone skating, I said it was six years or so. Then I remembered that I was actually 12 the last time I'd gone skating. So I increased the number of years absent from the ice to about 10 years (I apparently am in denial about how old I am ... that, or I can't do simple math). By the time I'd actually rented the skates and was lacing them up, I finally realized that it had been 14 years since I'd hit the ice! I should've known at this point that the skating would not feel like second nature to me anymore.
Regardless of this recently-realized fact, my friends and I made our way over to the actual ice with excitement and only a touch of trepidation. We soon grasped the reality—that we should've been very,very scared (well, not Care. She, apparently, had only gone two years without ice skating. But Brook and I ... we were in rough shape).
I had hit the ice (on my rear) in less than five minutes (but apparently I did it very, very gracefully ... with one leg in attitude even). I was up and skating again in mere moments. I started to get the feel of the ice again ... not well, mind you. I was half walking on the ice and half stumbling along skating, but I had my feet underneath me, and I was traveling around the rink.
It was at about this time that I decided to take some pictures of my fellow skaters (there was no one at the rink besides my friends and me ... thank you, Jesus). No sooner had I brought out the camera than Brook busted it. Her fall was no funnier that mine, but it soon became very, very hilarious because Brook could not get up. I have about four pictures of her splayed out on the ground, trying desperately to get up, while Care cracks up and poses in the background. I was safely clutching the rink's side at this time so I could laugh and photograph safely.
When B finally made it up, we all started skating around again. I'd made a few laps and started to feel pretty confident, and then—BAM—I hit the deck again. Still gracefully, but hard enough that I have a lovely bruised leg to show for it today. I was starting to learn that I could not laugh without falling (which did not help my skating efforts out, as I was almost continuously laughing—not because Brook kept falling, but because none of us could stop without slamming into the sides of the rink).
I guess we skated successfully (well ... mostly successfully) for about 45 minutes. But Brook and I were done after that last (third) fall. She busted it in a somewhat comical way, which of course made me burst out in laughter, which of course made me bust it. But I didn't do the graceful Anna fall this time. Nope. I did the "slip on the banana peel, feet flying out from under you" fall. And hit the ice hard. For a moment there, I was sure I had gotten a concussion (just what I needed, what with my ongoing neurological problems). Care happened to have my camera at this point in time, so she took the opportunity to document the whole process. I was on the ground and cracking up. B was half laughing, half struggling to get up (which only made me break out into even more vigorous laughter).
Anyway, after we had finally stopped laughing and made it back into an upright position, we all decided to take a few more laps around the rink and then call it a day (ice skating is a pretty good workout! That, and somewhat painful when you keep falling down). By this point in time, we had thoroughly entertained a few lunching businessmen (one of whom literally sat right in front of the rink and stared at us for his entire lunch break), and we had thoroughly entertained ourselves.
Needless to say, I am quite sore today. I've got a few bruises from our ice skating extravaganza, and I've got plenty of sore muscles. I swear the sore abdominals stem from my incessant laughter rather than any actual skating (or falling), though. But it's a great sore feeling—even better than an awesome workout sore feeling—because we had an absolute blast yesterday as we relived our childhoods and made complete fools of ourselves. I'm certainly not going to wait another 14 years before I hit the ice again.
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