Skating

Thing 2's class went on a field trip to the skating rink this morning, and I tagged along. I seem to be an anomoly amongst parents, in that I love going on field trips. I hardly ever get to go any more, because I'm working more hours and I think when your kids are younger, you feel the need to be with your kid because OH MY GOD WHAT IF SHE NEEDS ME AND I'M NOT THERE, which you do not feel once they are a bit older. Like, not even a little bit. So I was the only Grade 7 mother there.

Anyway, the Grade 7s went skating with their "reading buddies", the Kindergarten class. There are about 32 Grade 7s and about 18 Kindergarteners, so you can imagine that some little ones are smothered in "reading buddies". The idea was that the older kids would help the younger ones skate, but because March Break starts next week, there were plenty of kids away, and the upshot was that there were way more older ones than little ones, and the older ones were not the least bit interested in the little kids at all. They were way more interested in staging a production of "Hormones on Ice".

Skating is hard. Like, literally, hard. There are sharp blades and solid boards to keep you from tumbling right out of the rink and the ice....my God, the ice. Falling on ice is brutal...that stuff does NOT give way, and you will rattle your teeth and hear your brain clang around in your skull. I've had a couple of falls in my time that might explain my inability to do long division or parallel park.

I'm a pretty good skater; I don't go too fast, but I also don't fall down and I look respectable. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a good enough skater that I could skate with my hands in my pockets; for some reason, that looked to be the height of agility and confidence when I was about 9. I never did get there, but I can skate well enough to make me enjoy it. The Mister is and excellent skater, since he played hockey from the day he could walk, like all Canadian males. He can skate with his hands in his pockets. Thing 2 used to have a kid in her class who's dad played in the NHL...when he came on the skating field trips, he could not only skate with his hands in his pockets, he could skate carrying a full-sized Kindergartener on each arm. I was enchanted.

You could easily tell which kids had done this before and which ones had not. The hockey players, boys and girls, swooped and turned and tore around like pinballs. There were a couple of kids who had never skated before, mostly kids from other countries. The Korean kids took about four steps before they had it all figured out, and were skating in no time. The kids from the Middle East and South Africa had a bit tougher time out there, but they certainly kept at it, long after I would have given up.

Skating is fun...I should do it more often. Of course, it's even more fun when there's other people to watch.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack

They didn't win, and it was a shame. We took the girls to see a Blue Jays game in Toronto yesterday, and despite their defeat to the Phillys, it was a great day anyway.

I love going to baseball games. I hardly ever watch it on tv, although if the Mister is watching one, I'll sort of pay attention, but I adore going to a live game. It's probably the only sport I will pay to watch, in fact. (The NFL doesn't seem interested in coming up with the necessary incentive to get me to pay attention to them, which would be considerable, I can tell you.)

One of the things I love about baseball games is watching the crowd...there's no end of fascinating people at a big baseball park. Like the woman who sat in front of us who seemed to spend the entire game trying to get her boyfriend's attention. (Seriously, he's at a professional sports event, lady, if you showed up naked with tequila he wouldn't pay attention to you.) There were two twenty-something guys sitting beside me who giggled like 11 year-old girls the entire game, and a couple of Orthodox Jews with some little boys who yelled like banshees whenever the Jays got a hit. Everyone was having a ball. I also love that at baseball games, everyone talks to each other. One guy sitting in our row was a Philadelphia fan (in fact, from what I could hear, he drove from Philadelphia to see the game.) and he put up with some good-natured trash-talk until Toronto started trailing, wherein he gave as good as he got.

There is one thing I noticed at the ball park, and that is that there apparently was some sort of convention of People Who Walk Without Watching Where They Are Going meeting there, because no matter where you went, there was someone walking in one direction, and walking in another. They usually complicated matters by carrying vats of Diet Coke and trailing at least one small child with them while doing it.

One of the best things about going to a ball game is the food....for some reason the food at the ball park is unbelievably good. Don't ask me why. But it is heinously expensive. I'm sure the Rogers Centre is no better or worse than any other major league park, but you could easily run through your entire RRSP if you wanted to eat anything there. I bought 2 Coke Zeros and 2 soft pretzels for, get this, $17.00. Seventeen dollars. I saw a woman with a huge box full of hot dogs, at least two dozen, and I bet she had to have a talk with her bank manager this morning regarding that. We did stop off at the grocery store before we set out for the big city, and the Mister found some peanuts there that claimed to be the "official" peanuts of the Blue Jays, so he bought 4 bags for a dollar each. When we got there, the exact same bags were selling for $4.75. So, we felt like we got away with something. (The Mister is always happier when he feels like he's got the financial and moral high ground.)

So much to see and do and eat. You can't beat a ball game on a summer's day.

A Liver Runs Through It

I have long maintained a policy of "accept all invitations", as well as "try everything once". Usually these work out in a most pleasing manner: Kalamata olives, skiing and marrying the Mister, for example, have all been overwhelmingly positive. (Disney on Ice, roquefort dressing and the "bullet"water slide at Canada's Wonderland, not so much.) In that spirit, I accepted Big Liver Girl's invitation to attend the local fly-fishing society's monthly meeting last night. Just in case you are wondering, it fell into the "glad I did it" category, not the "please put a bullet in my head before I do that again" category.

Big Liver Girl has a place in Quebec, which I love going to very much. Since she and I and a bunch of other ladies from the hood (and I use the term "ladies" loosely, believe me) will be spending a weekend there in late May. Big Liver Girl got it into her head that she wants to take up fly fishing, and I would be the perfect companion for this sojourn. I'm not sure why she chose me, other than she is familiar with the above policy, and I can't help feel that she is taking callous advantage. Anyway, I was certainly game to give it a whirl.

Now, I've been fishing before, but with a rod and lure, which, apparently, is the appallingly low-rent cousin of fly fishing.....the Taco Bell to fly fishing's Cordon Bleu. I realized I had a LOT to learn. (For example, Big Liver Girl told me the cautionary tale of her own folly, mainly, she had mentioned at the last meeting that she planned to eat her catch, which resulted in a hushed and horrified silence, and then a polite change of subject, like she had farted loudly or something.)

Anyway, the talk at last night's meeting was all about common mistakes that even seasoned fishers make, like: know your hatch and mending your mend and watching the rise. It was all very interesting, until I realized that I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. But, since I am such a keen student, I found myself trying to remember it all, and then I would snap out of it and realize that it meant absolutely nothing to me.

Big Liver Girl took the plunge (heh) and and became a member, for only $30 for the year. (She got a patch for her jacket, to boot.) I hope Big Liver Girl can learn the basics and then teach me, because I LOVE the idea of the two of us out in the river in Quebec, casting flies and catching trout, and generally creating a River Runs Through It scenario in which we look fabulous. I'm just not sure I can commit to actually learning the ins and outs of it. We tossed around the idea of hiring a guide, who would show us what to do, and would carry the beer, and maybe do the driving so we wouldn't have to. I also like the idea that I finally will have an excuse to wear hip waders without apology.

All in all, I think I will like fly fishing very much.

Going to the Game.

For the first time in about 30 years, I went to a hockey game tonight. (Thank you Blair and Susan!) The Mister has some friends who were able to get us some tickets (as they are near impossible to get, the tickets, not the friends) and we went to dinner and then the game. I'm not a huge sports fan, in fact, most of the time I am completely the opposite of interested in sports; sometimes I'm offended that sports even exist. But even a hardened cynic such as myself can admit that watching sports on tv and going to a live event is, if you will excuse the pun, a whole different ballgame.

Going to an actual game makes me see, on some level, kind of what the allure of sports is all about: the story isn't written yet, anything can happen. I guess I can appreciate that, if nothing else. Also, when you go to a sporting event, particularly in a fairly small arena like the one we were in tonight, you can hear the hiss of the skates on the ice, and the clap of the stick on the puck and the grunting and puffing and the effort that goes into playing a game. That gets lost on television, I think. There's an immediacy in attending a game that makes it much, much more interesting. Also, there's usually plenty to look at other than the game, if you are so inclined. There's always the scoreboard, the big screen replays, the coaches, and, of course, the people around you.

The Mister and I used to go to plenty of baseball games when we were dating and first married. We'd go to the lots of Blue Jays games when we were young and kidless; we even were lucky enough to go to a World Series game in 93. But the best games I think I ever went to were when the Detroit Tigers had a farm team here for a couple of seasons, and they played at a beautiful old park ("oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world", in fact) just a couple of blocks from our house. It was spectacular; we'd walk there from work on a beautiful summer's evening, get in for around 5 bucks, grab a slice of pizza for dinner, watch the ball game, and walk on home. The park was small enough that you could hear everything, (including the catcher swearing at the pitcher), there wasn't a bad seat in the place and if you went in after the third inning, tickets were half price. And we got to see some of the most exciting baseball games that have ever been played. It was fabulous.

The Mister went to an NFL game a couple of weeks ago in Detroit, (with Blair again, actually) and I think football is about the only game I don't think I could sit through, at least not without bringing a good book. The games are interminable, and nothing happens for 90% of the time,you can't even make out who's who down on the field and it's played outside in the winter. What's to recommend it? I think they should just make the field shorter and then the games would be over much faster. I remember going to football games in high school, but I don't remember actually watching any of the game. I always felt sort of sorry for the girls who had boyfriends on the team, because they were actually supposed to pay attention.

I went to a cricket game in Ireland once. That was easily the most boring thing I've ever gone to. I drank a lot, so that helped.

I'm thrilled beyond belief that neither one of my kids has a shred of competitive fiber in their little selves, or is athletically inclined whatsoever. Not only would I not want to go to a game, it would kill me if they did badly, and I'd probably have to be restrained if another parent said anything about my child. I'd end up on the news for sure.

I have to say, I was impressed at how efficient the hockey game was....it started at 7, and by God, it was over by about 9:15. I appreciate that kind of competence. Even if they did lose.