Are We Having Fun Yet?

The early afternoon has turned out to be a bit of a bust.

I was so looking forward to going ice skating at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, VA, this afternoon. With the temperature over 90F, there's no place I'd rather be than in a highly air conditioned arena possibly even getting some exercise. Best of all, the DC Icebreakers were planning a skating event and a lunch outing afterwards so it would be nice to meet some new people who are as enthusiastic about skating as I am. (Perhaps I could even recruit a few for square dancing... bwahahahaha!)

Alas, things didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. While I know a couple of people who are members of the Icebreakers, none of them were there today. I didn't see any signs, banners, business cards, brochures or such to indicate the Icebreakers were there but it's possible I missed them. In any case, I don't know them and they don't know me so we might have been walking/skating past each other the entire time.

Needless to say, I didn't stay for the lunch outing. Even if I had managed to identify the group at the last minute (presuming they were actually there), I felt so spectacularly awkward at this point that it seemed quite inappropriate to try tagging along.

I walked around the mall itself for a half-hour since I've hardly ever seen the place. Cold Stone Creamery tempted me so but without my guys and already feeling disappointed in the day, indulging didn't have much attraction. I opted to return home.

The Iceplex itself seems a wonderful facility: airy, bright, reasonably priced, etc.. But the skating arena near me in Wheaton, while not as new, is also pretty good, has free parking, charges the same rates and is much, much closer to home. I'll try a rendez-vous with the Icebreakers again some day but I'll have to plan a great deal better than I did this time.

I'm just back from an ice skating session at our local arena. At the moment, I ache --in a good way-- from my lower back down to my toes. Time to rest, and blog all about it. :-)

It was a good workout: I skated heavily until my ankles and calves were burning, then skated three minutes more. Take a short break, then repeat. And again and again.

We were all shooed off the ice for the Zamboni, driven by a cute red-brown bearded cub. I tried to take a picture with my cell phone but couldn't get a shot through the plexiglass shielding around the rink. He even waved for me when he saw me with the telephone up. *sigh*

The newly sharpened blades are great, but clearly my left ankle needs work: I have difficulty gliding on the left for more than 30 seconds while I can do double that on my right --in fact, I run out of rink before my right ankle tires. My balance also isn't quite as good as it should be but both issues will get worked out with more rink time.

kent4str is installing a ceiling fan in the larger guest room. We've been meaning to do it for years but have only gradually moved on this project. I'm staying out of the way.

I've retrieved my newly sharpened ice skates from our local rink. Can't wait to use these puppies!

The weather has turned hot & humid. It took nearly an hour to feel dry once towelled off after my morning shower. Thank god for air conditioning. It's also getting ugly in our area: the greater Washington DC area is under a tornado watch until 5 PM and there's a possibility of a heavy storm later today, including hail. Whee!

I have chicken wings in the toaster oven for lunch; later in the day, we're heading to Mt Airy to visit with kent4str's parents and help them move furniture.

I took today off work as a sick day: I've been a little strung out and was feeling physically miserable last night & this morning. It turned out to be a wise ideas as I'm feeling vastly better this afternoon. I should be back at work tomorrow (Friday) with no problems.

I slept a few hours this morning, perhaps my most productive time spent thus far. After a brief lunch of chicken wings, I dug out my ice skates and headed to the local rink for about 90 minutes of exercise. My ankles and calves were screaming for an hour afterwards but I'm feeling pretty good about my workout. The skates were left at the arena for sharpening; I should be able to pick them up on Saturday.

One of the the little tasks outstanding from last week's home telephone outage was the activation of my newly arrived Mastercard: the credit card company required activation from the telephone number on file. This afternoon, the new card was activated and I've been looking up all of the utilities which automagically bill that Mastercard to update their records, including MCI, Verizon Wireless and E-Z Pass for my toll road transponder. It took some work to look up all of the account numbers and obtain long-forgotten passwords & PINs but it's all done.

I've also caught up on my billing for our regular square dancing gigs. QuickBooks is updated and invoices sent: all is good.

Now it's just a matter of ensuring there's enough cash in the joint checking account for all of our upcoming month-end bills & payments... oy.

In the past, I had talked about finding a place where I could go skating during lunch. While I had the public skating schedule for the Frederick, MD, arena, I hadn't checked out the facility yet. Work was light earlier today so it seemed an opportune time for a road trip.

It's a fairly nice and modern facility, although if I had gone skating today, I would have been the only person on the ice.

Anyone else interested in joining me for ice skating in Frederick, MD, periodically, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM? We'd have the place to ourselves!

I'm looking forward to the extra exercise. There's no doubt my weight is gradually edging upwards --pigging out on weapons-grade girl scout thin mints obviously hasn't helped-- but it's largely from my lack of strenuous physical activity. I've been hovering (hoovering?) around 185 lbs for a while: it's time to downsize to about 170.

The rink, however, is surrounded by Roy Rogers, Dairy Queen, Five Guys burgers, Cold Stone Creamery and a grocery store. They aren't making this easy.

BTW, on a lark, I drove back to the office along 355 southbound. I was pleasantly surprised how nice areas of north Frederick and historic Frederick can be. Who knew? :-)

I crawled out of bed around 10 AM. After a quick shower and making myself (sorta) presentable to the outside world, I headed into Kensington.

After a quick stop at the CVS for soap and a gallon of windshield washer fluid, another stop at the coffee shop for three chocolate-iced donuts and a third at the barber shop for a once-over with the #2 clippers, I'm home again.

The car is topped up with fluids and I'm topped up with donuts. All is well. Every errand I needed to accomplish today has been completed within one hour.

I'm considering ice skating but there will be soooo many kids. Besides, I'm planning to spend more lunch hours skating in Frederick during the work week.

On ramsjb's excellent suggestion, I've started looking for a skating rink in the vicinity of Frederick, MD, the nearest urban area to my office. If I'm having a bad day, I could always take an extended lunch ice skating.

My searches turned up this, a rink not too far from work with public skating sessions 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM every weekday for $5.50. Yay!

Ever see Kathy Griffin's routine describing Barbra Streisand on Oprah some time ago? Notorious control freak Barbra was clearly a little freaked by Oprah's live on-stage unannounced surprises. Kathy's satirical ultra-high speed mumbling impression went something like, "Omigod, not in control... not in control... not in control..."

( I spent much of Saturday sympathising with Barbra. )

Ah, it's been a hell of a weekend.

cuyahogarvr arrived Thursday evening and we went directly down to DC Lambda Squares' club night near Dupont Circle for dancing. I missed the 2009 convention meeting but there were no big issues on the agenda. We left for home a little early but it was fun dancing nonetheless.

kent4str and I went to work per usual Friday morning; cuyahogarvr went down to the mall in DC, visiting the Holocaust Museum. We all reunited at the house around 4:30 PM, napped briefly, then prepped for kent4str's office holiday party.

The evening's bash was at the Sofitel Hotel at McPherson Square. We lucked out on the quest for parking... we found a spot a square away from the hotel. Yay! (Wow, how said is my life that I get excited over a convenient parking spot?)

This year, the office pulled out all of the stops on their party preparations: they had a live band --largely playing Motown hits, a pasta bar, a seafood bar, a salad bar and beef station. The bar slung drinks at a furious pace. The only disappointment was the dessert bar, but even the brownies being second-rate didn't stop me from woofing down a couple. Hey, it was free food!

Kent, Michael & Brian Kilpatrick Stockton holiday party, Washington DC, 2006-12-09.

Saturday morning, we arose relatively early --8 AM or so-- then headed into downtown Silver Spring to the Tastee Diner for breakfast with zzbear Jeff and Jeff's friend, Chris. Towards noon, kent4str headed off for his role playing game in Virginia while the rest of us headed into Wheaton, MD, for ice skating at my favourite arena.

This was my first time on the skates I bought on eBay a month ago. On the whole, they were pretty good: they need their blades sharpened and I'll wear an extra pair of socks next time to help the fit, but I'm quite pleased with the skates.

Despite having not been on ice for a while, our cohort did very well. Jeff has decades of experience with skating; while cuyahogarvr hasn't been on skates in decades, he did extremely well. zzbear and Chris did very well despite being relatively inexperienced. Falls were few, injuries were non-existent (at least among our group) and there were no deaths to speak of. I think we can declare victory.

Brian, Michael, David, Jeff & Chris Skating, Wheaton MD, 2006-12-09.

In the evening, cuyahogarvr and I collected ljtourist from relatives in Alexandria, then joined up with Jeff and kent4str for dinner at a mexican restaurant in Del Ray. We had been to this particular restaurant before but it had been years ago... the food was good and service was fast so we'll have to add this to our short list of preferred establishments.

After dinner, we headed into Crystal City to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. If you have the opportunity, do try the new dark chocolate mint ice cream... Mmmmmm.

kent4str and cuyahogarvr headed home in the minivan while I drove ljtourist back to Alexandria and said our good nights. I'm looking forward to ljtourist's next visit to DC, our our next to Seattle.

Frank Cold Stone Creamery, Arlington VA, 2006-12-09.

OK, not actually in DC proper but in the Maryland 'burbs of DC.

A handful of folks are going ice skating in Wheaton this coming Saturday (Dec. 9), for the 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM block. Rink location, skate rental info and such are all at:
http://www.mc-mncppc.org/parks/enterprise/ice/wheaton/index.shtm

Before skating though, we're going to rendez-vous at 10 AM at the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring (8601 Cameron Street), a couple of short blocks from the Silver Spring Metro station. I'm sure we can arrange a ride from there to the rink for those of Metro riders.

So far, we have me, cuyahogarvr and Jeff M. & friend. All are welcome to join us!