Skating - I Still Love It!

And after sitting in the arena Thursday night and all day and evening Friday, I realize I really miss it. I miss going to all the competitions and sitting and watching practices and competitions and just being a "Rink Rat". It's a place where all the problems of the world go away and I sit and enjoy. Friday night, I went to sleep almost immediately after my head hit my pillow, and with a smile on my face. And for the first time in a long time, I slept all night without waking up at all. In fact, I went to bed before 11:00 and slept until 8:00 a.m. the next day.

My girls loved it, too. On Thursday night, we watched the Ladies Short Program. I think it was around 11:00 p.m. when we got home. Good thing the girls didn't have school on Friday. Anna was fine until we got home. I think the real problem was that I had to wake her up to get out of the car and she just cried complaining her leg was broken until she fell asleep again. We were back at the arena again by 11:00 a.m. on Friday to watch first the Junior Pairs and then the Junior Men's finals. I used to sell Beanie Babies when I was trying to earn money to pay for Jessica's adoption and I still have a couple of rubbermaid tubs of them. I let the girls pick out some, and also brought the baggie of teeny beanies I had so the girls could throw them on the ice for the skaters. We moved down from our row 19 seats to corners seats in row 6 so they'd be closer to the ice. They had a blast. And Anna is still talking about "Adam". He's the one who won the Junior Men's competition. She also liked Johnny (Weir).

I also got to spend a little time talking to the Silver Blade Tours coordinator, Claudyne. She and I roomed together once when her mom owned the tour company. We spent a lot of time together on many of the tours I went on between Skate America, National's and World's. We both mentioned that our main memories of each other is that whenever we were together, we were always laughing. Something was always funny to us, whether it was the sleeping judge who Claudyne later rode the elevator with, or the time I followed her half way around the crowed arena darting in and around people, and then lost each other on the side by side escalators, or having to switch rooms because the hotel didn't get that we were supposed to be rooming together. She was even wearing her red plaid skirt which she bought it in England when I was with her. That brought back a whole flood of memories. Too bad she lives in Florida. We promised to keep more in touch. I think she enjoyed reliving old memories as much as I did. She said she even got to go to the winter olympics one year, and was a guest at Todd Eldredge's wedding. Neither one of us could believe it had been 10 years since we'd seen each other.

Unfortunately, the girls and I were too busy to go to anything on Saturday or Sunday, plus the cost of the seats were outrageous. I had to settle for watching it on TV. My girls didn't get as excited watching skating on TV. They liked that they "knew" who the skaters were, but really wanted to play Webkinz on the computer instead.

So, I miss skating. I miss having someone to talk to about it all. My friends just don't understand how I feel when I'm there, how it's such a passion for me. I went to bed Saturday night crying and wishing for the first time since before I had kids that I had a husband who had to listen to me talk about skating. Maybe I was just sad it was over. Maybe it was pms, I don't know. And my girls just didn't understand when I watched the short program and got in such a huff again because Evan Lycachek two-footed his landing in the short program (right in front of me - I was right!) and didn't get marked down, and then wobbled a bunch of jumps in the long program, when Johnny Weir skated both programs beautifully except for two-footing his quad, but didn't win. Yes, it was amazingly a tie, but ugh! I think Carolyn Zhang should have scored better as well. Even Jessica noticed how good she was when she did the short program.

So anyway, there's my rant about skating. It's done now and I hope it's not another 10 years before a competition comes here. I'm glad I spent the money and took the girls. I would have regretted it if I hadn't.