ice skating...

amusement never ceases when katie and i are at our ice skating class. last week was just plain horrid... i got progressively worse. my wrist is still a bit sore, but my finger is healing quite nicely. anyway, this morning was much better. the drills we do are usually a humbling experience and i've been told countless times by katie that my facial expressions are priceless. apparently i've got that 'you have GOT to be kidding me...' look down quite well as well as the 'why am i here? i can not do that' look. katie calls me precious and i always leave her laughing. but... big news. i can almost stop like he showed us now! ya know that fun little hockey stop? the one where you just turn slideways to stop and basically shave off the top layer of ice looking real cool and talented? yeah... i think i'm at the point of being 1/4 of the way to halfway decent! quite exciting indeed. and we skate backwards looking about as ridiculous as humanly possible. our instructions sound something like this: 'bend your knees and stick your butt out! now... march in place, turn your toes inward and just go backwards! NO! i said BEND YOUR KNEES!' someone today said that it felt like boot camp and i do belive i muttered something about hating the coach... but its really not that bad; nothing like a little public humiliation to start the day out right. we made a new friend though. chris was working with us on the stopping stuff and we lovingly call him the nazi. oh the joys of ice skating class. what a thrill it is to go for a 15 minute walk at 8am in 10 degree weather and then skate around in a building that is supposedly 10 degrees colder than the temp outside all to merely find out that i have no natural talent for anything other than skating around in a circle. coach told us that falling is the best way to improve because it gets you out of your comfort zone, so katie left feeling driven to fall next class... 'Melanie, our goal for next week is to fall at least once'...'Uhh Katie, i've already fallen. it's your turn now'. i do wonder about that girl somtimes. we were calmly walking to class today when she suddenly took this huge and awkward step. i asked her what the heck that was about and she looked at me and said, 'oh, well i was just avoiding stepping on the cracks. i play that game all the time. hmm... i wonder if i always look so weird. i wonder what people think?' my goodness that girl is hilarious. never in my life have i heard so many funny life stories out of one person. ahh good times with katie. alright, that's all. ta ta