DC Hawkeye on Ice

I love hockey. There are few things I love more than hockey, but I should clarify: There are few things I love more than watching hockey. I have never played hockey. Despite my predisposition toward anything involving humiliation and/or physical injury, I've never even strapped on a pair of skates. It's something I've wanted to do for years and have talked to friends about going out and doing, but it just never got done. Until today.

This time I didn't even try to sucker anyone into going with me, I decided to go to Kettler after work and find out what I'm made of.

The timing wasn't random, it was actually inspired by this article in yesterday's Washington Post Express about a hockey "skills & drills" class. The part that captured my interest was how they describe that the class "...takes anyone who can skate and teaches them how to hustle a puck." That sentence alone got me into a pair of rented ice skates 24 hours after reading. Having "learn how to skate" on my to-do list is one thing, but considering that to be the only thing standing between me and learning some mad puck-handling skills is another thing altogether. Learning to skate is no longer the goal, it's the annoying precursor to the awesomeness of me actually playing hockey someday. Heck, I play in a skeeball league, hockey is the next logical step, right?

So, a few hours after I read the article I began looking online for places that have beginners lessons on how to skate. There are a few places in the area, but it looks like my best bet if I want to start learning ASAP is in Rockville. They have a six-week class that began on May 15th, but I can still sign up having missed the first class. I was ready to do it, but I thought it would be best to head out to Kettler and find out exactly what I'm dealing with here. I mean, if I break my ankle during my first class, then I've wasted a lot of money! I want to know I'll be able to make it five weeks. Naturally, I headed out to Kettler so I could break my ankle tonight with less financial burden.

I didn't break the ankle after all, though I expect it will be a bit swollen tomorrow from all the wobbling.

This was a very difficult thing to do by myself. I knew that I could have found someone to go with me sometime this week, but I was on a mission. I had to do it today while I was making up my mind about the classes in Rockville. I arrived at the adult public skate as the Zamboni was resurfacing the ice. Then I watched a line of adults skate out onto the rink. Some were off to the side working on various skills, but most of them were skating laps around the ice. It was very much like the roller skating rink. Everyone skates in a circle at various speeds. I asked the girl at the skate rental counter, "I have never skated before. Would it be a horrible idea to go out there right now, never having any lessons, not knowing what I'm doing?" She thought it was a great idea. "You're never going to learn anything until you get out there." Damn her and her skating wisdom! I half wanted her to talk me out of it. She did the opposite of talking me out of it. She encouraged me.

Not only did the girl at the rental counter encourage me, but she was extremely helpful. She gave me some tips - told me to try figure skates first, rather than hockey skates. She showed me the different blades and explained how you have to balance your center of gravity differently on hockey skates and it's harder to do if you're skating for the first time. She told me not to try and use the toepick to stop, and then (bless her heart) when I told her my shoe size, she examined all of the skates to find a good, sharp blade. She told me where the lockers were and sent me on my way.

I was surprised at how well I stayed balanced on the skates, but that didn't stop me from clinging to the boards for dear life. I recognized one of the guys as a Kettler employee and asked him for pointers. He was so unimpressed with me. "I can't, I've got to watch the skate." I explain, "Oh no, I'm not asking you to 'show' me anything, I just don't know how to get started. How long of a stride I should take, how to lean, that sort of stuff. You don't have to show me, just tell me how to push off." He was unflinching: "Ehhhhh, I'm not an instructor." I was obnoxious: "But you know how to skate!" The best I could get out of him was that the instructors say to stride about the same as walking, and to hang onto the sides all the way around the rink if I have to. Thanks! I hope no shenanigans went on during the public skate while you took the time to talk to me!

I kid the skate supervisor, but I did heed his advice about hanging onto the sides. I stayed within an arm's length of the boards at all times. It was like training wheels. I'd get going for a while and then I would wobble and catch myself. I think the ice along the sides may have been harder to skate on because there were so many grooves already in the ice that I could feel myself skating in and out of divots, which made it harder to maintain my balance. In the endzones there were a lot of people working on various skills, so it was considerably more embarrassing to make my way around the corners because people had to get out of my way. It was pretty clear that I was going to keep my grip and was not going to go around them. (For their own safety, really. If they're standing between me and the ledge, I'm still gonna grab the closest thing to me when I lose my balance. Better to be the boards than them!)

I took a couple of laps and each time I was interrupting the same people who were camped out along the endzones. They were not hanging on for safety as I was, they were working with other people on specific skills. Two girls looked like they were doing some kind of ballet moves and using the ledge as a barre. They did not much care for my intrusions. In fact, many of the people looked annoyed as I made my laps. I came around the corners very apologetically and poking fun at myself while letting them know it was my first time. Everyone was accommodating and usually nice about it. It still didn't stop some people from scowling at me. I began to wish I had worn an eye patch, or something that would immediately make them feel sympathetic toward me or think that something was wrong with me so they would be more patient. If I had some deformity, or was wearing a head brace or neck brace or something, I think I would have gotten a warmer response from other skaters. I didn't have anything to outwardly evoke sympathy. I could never fake something like that and my actual physical shortcomings wouldn't have warmed anyone up to my strugles. For example, if I had skated by shouting, "Asthmatic, coming through" or, "Pardon me, I have irritable bowels" as I plowed through the arena. Nope, I'm just a regular person with regular problems, who just happens to not have a clue how to skate.

I took three good laps and it started to get easier until the Kettler employee who is not an instructor blew the horn and everyone began to skate the opposite direction. This was a game-changer. Up until then I felt like I was making progress with my right hand out to steady myself, grabbing the boards when I slipped up (which became less and less frequent.) When we switched directions, I had to use my left hand to catch myself, and that was much harder to keep steady. After one more lap I knew it was time to quit. If I sign up for lessons in Rockville, my first class will be this Saturday and I didn't want to push myself harder and put more strain on my poor ankles before then. Plus, the exasperated looks of the other skaters was beginning to make me feel self conscious. My Midwestern sensibilities recognized these two rules of thumb: Don't beat yourself up before you even begin, and don't wear out your welcome. It was definitely time to go.

I returned to the skate rental counter and my friend from earlier was at another counter talking to coworkers. I called her over and she asked if I was trading the skates for another size, I said, "No, I'm done. I'm turning them in." She said, "Oh. You can just leave them on the counter." I was hoping she would ask how it went and talk to me some more about how to get used to skating. Instead, she pretty much told me that I had called her over there for no reason. She was so over me. It was time to go.

I'm going to keep at it and eventually it will get easier and the wobbling will stop. After that, I'll move on to the new challenges of trying to learn how to handle a puck. It's times like this when I wish I could be a kid again. Trying new things is so much easier before we learn the concept of humiliation.



Sign in time: 8:02 p.m.



Sign out time: 8:25 p.m. That includes the time it took to rent the skates, get some pointers, and get a locker. I must have been on the ice only 15 minutes but it felt so much longer!

That's what friends are for

I live in a large apartment building in NW Washington, DC. I am near the Metro and there are shops and restaurants nearby, I have always felt like everything I need is within walking distance. (Everything I want, on the other hand - that may require public transportation or a Zipcar. Depending on how badly I want it.) I have lived there for about a year and a half, but it's just lately that I've gotten to know my neighbors and grown to appreciate and love where I live.

I don't know the exact specifications, but the building is very large and it is mostly one-room studio apartments. There are some other floorplans, but the majority seem to be studio. The rent is expensive for folks like me at an entry-level job, but it's truly the best value for a studio in DC. There is an exercise room downstairs with a sauna and a hot tub. There is a sun deck on the roof, and a party room on the second floor for residents to get together. The party room has a flat screen TV, a comfy couch and chairs, a coffee maker, a lending library, and if tenants leave their drivers license at the front desk, we can have access to the Nintendo Wii. In addition to all of these amenities, the building hosts free coffee and bagels before work once or twice a month, and a couple of times a year they host a wine and cheese party for us in the party room. The building is rather old, and the hallways feel like a hotel or a dormitory, but it is worth every penny I can barely afford to pay to live there.

Even though I'd lived there over a year, it has not been until this summer that I have started to meet other tenants. The building management hosted a party in June, and one of the tenants tried to draw up interest in getting a team together for pub trivia. The pub trivia didn't exactly pan out, but once everyone had exchanged contact information, emails started to abound. There was always an invitation to a happy hour, a kickball league, dinner, game night, going away parties... there was always something going on. It has taken me a while to catch on, but this atmosphere of expensive one-room apartments seems to draw a similar demographic of people. We are all out of school and carving our career path and we're old enough to appreciate living by ourselves. At the same time, we are young enough that we're not at the point where we're ready to buy a house or get married or start a family. It makes sense that we should all come together in this little community of expensive studio apartments.

Yesterday was the birthday of one of the girls in the building. One of the guys in the building had bought her a birthday card and somehow that had a snowball effect and by the evening, we had a card, candy, balloons, cupcakes from Red Velvet, and we invited her and everyone else to get together in the party room to watch The Simpsons Halloween special. This led to the realization that we did not have enough cupcakes.

Brian, Beau and I ended up in Brian's apartment waiting for a call back from the birthday girl. We decided that a box of Ghiradelli brownie mix would save us from running out of birthday cupcakes. After much running around and gathering ingredients, we had mixed up the batter and started to pour it into the 13 x 8 inch pan. The batter barely covered the bottom of the pan. It was apparent that we had a problem and that problem was about 5 inches worth of cake pan.

We laughed at ourselves, then someone else had a box of brownie mix and we mixed that up (to a very different consistency) and poured it into the pan on top of the rest. The absurdity of the different brownie mixes, and people running out to different apartments to grab supplies and back to the brownie batter was absurd. I had a genuine moment of affection and said, "My life has improved so much since I met you guys." Beau looked at me in disbelief, spatula in hand, and said, "Really? This is your moment? You're having that much fun right now?" I reconsidered. Of all the incredibly fun things we've done together, why did I take that opportunity to tell them how much I appreciate them? I tried to explain,

"Yes. Because this moment is identical to what I would be doing had I never met you guys. Except I'd be in my kitchen by myself, feeling like a dumbass for picking the wrong pan and wondering how I was going to eat two dozen brownies all by myself."

Things to see and do in Washington

The weeks to come are going to be busy out here in Washington. There's a big event, perhaps you've heard about it. It's on January 20th and it's called Incredible-Nuisance-And-Unusual-Gathering-U-Really-Aughta-Think-Intensely-of-Nomadizing; most commonly referenced by the acronym INAUGURATION.

[Okay, nomadizing was a stretch, but "not being around" would ruin the acronym. ]

I am truly afraid of the crowds that will descend upon this city next week. I do not have to work either of my jobs, as most employers do not expect their employees to be able to travel to work that day. Even the bookstore is closed for inauguration day. When a retail outlet closes the doors on a day they could make a ton of money, that says something about the chaos to come. I have four days off of work and was considering a trip to NYC but the budget is busted after Christmas. I also have friends from Iowa coming in for the inauguration so it'll be nice to see them and catch up. The next couple of weeks will be busy.

Tomorrow I have tickets to see the Washington Capitals play the Boston Bruins. I'm sorry to admit I've become a degenerate gambler since I got here and I made a bet on a hockey game with a Flyers fan last month. The Flyers beat the Capitals 7-1 and to pay up on my bet, I had to buy the tickets to the game tomorrow. So, I will be at a Capitals game with a Flyers fan watching the Bruins play my team. Makes sense? No. This is why you should never gamble. You'll be out $30 like me.

The aforementioned Flyers fan lives in Virginia Beach but works in DC at times. I don't really know him that well, but I am so desperate for hockey friends that I overlook the Flyers thing. (Actually, five of my hockey fan friends are for other teams... Devils, Islanders, Hurricanes, Flyers, Bruins. Damn. I need new friends.) Anyway, Flyers Fan is in the Navy and tomorrow he invited me to go with him to Arlington National Cemetery before the game.

He had told me a few weeks ago he was coming up to put flags on some graves at Arlington and today he invited me to come along. Knowing that he's in the military, I wasn't sure how to respond. I asked if they were friends of his and he said a few members of his team were killed in Baghdad in 2007. When he comes up here he always tries to stop in Arlington. It seems like such an intensely personal thing and my first reaction was not to go. He said it was just a quick visit, "nothing mushy," and he asked if I have ever been to Arlington before.

The truth is, I have lived here for six months and I have not been to Arlington Cemetery. I have not been a lot of places yet, for that matter. So, I will work on changing that starting tomorrow. It's supposed to be cold, so I don't think it will be a long visit, but I'm interested to see how things are going to go. My first visit to Arlington will be with a member of our armed forces, visiting some of his fallen comrades. My first reaction was to stay away from this personal occasion. After some serious consideration, I can't think of a better way to see the grounds. I have quite a few friends and loved ones who are in the military or are veterans. I could have taken a tour of Arlington Cemetery at any time as a tourist but I never did. In a way, I am kind of honored to be able to see the cemetery like this rather than in a group of tourists, gazing at identical gravestones while paying my respects. I'm a little glad I haven't rushed out to see the sites in DC.

Change you can't believe in

I moved to D.C. the day after graduation. This jar is one of the many things on my to-do list that remained undone. It's silly to haul 10 lbs. of spare change across the country in a moving truck, but today something even more ridiculous happened. I'm finally short enough on cash to take this heavy haul to the bank; now I'm back from the bank but I still have the jar of change. Is it because I like to carry heavy bags around town? Is it because I hate my back and I'm deliberately trying to break it? No. I still have the money because the bank refused to take it.

Apparently the bank of America won't cash in spare change for their customers unless it's in rolls. The teller apologized and offered me some empty rolls to fill in my spare time and bring them back. She also gave me the other option of having it sent somewhere off-site to be counted for a $5 charge. Maybe it's just the branch near my apartment (3 excruciating blocks away) or maybe Bank of America is just too big to deal with spare change. The question is, what do I do with it now? Use it to buy groceries? Sell it on eBay?

I've never been to a bank that didn't have a machine on-site to count change. Usually it's free for customers and a couple of bucks for everyone else. I pondered this as I walked home (between whimpers of "Ouch - my back!") Is this just a Midwestern thing? How presumptuous of me to bring money into my bank and expect them to just put it in my account.

Vocabulary Optional

It was time. I think it's been over a year since I got my hair cut. If you've seen me lately, that shouldn't surprise you. I was beginning to resemble Cousin It. My curls look silly if my hair is short, but it shouldn't be so long that I look like I'm trying to win a contest. Remember the fingernail guy in the Guinness Book of World Records? After a certain length, they just start to twist out of control. That's kinda' what happened with my locks.

Yesterday I found out that I'll be attending a seminar at work, and I'm expected to host part of it. That means standing up in front of a crowd of people. Not one of my favorite things to do, but at least they're college students. It shouldn't be too hard, but as soon as I found out I was going to be doing some public speaking, I scheduled a hair appointment.

Back in Iowa, I spent anywhere from $10-$25 on a haircut. I asked around and heard that in DC, even Supercuts would run about $25. So, I went to a place near my apartment that had a good reputation, a $45 haircut and an open spot tonight.

I walked into the salon, was guided to the shampoo station where a woman scrubbed my scalp like she was cleaning the kitchen floor with a hand-sponge. She said a few words, but I'm not sure if they were to me or if they were even in english. After that, she led me to the next room.

When I walked in, an older gentleman said, "Ah!" and popped up to lead me to the salon chair. Wordlessly, he draped the cape around me and began to brush my hair with as much vigor as the shampoo scrub-woman. He didn't say a word, just brushed my unbrushable curls and said nothing when my head bobbed and wiplashed with every tangle. When his hands were close to my face, I could smell a strong odor of stale cigarette smoke. At that point, I began to look around. It was hard to focus with all of the bobbing and thrashing going on around my noggin, but I didn't see any licenses or anything on the wall. I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. For all I know, this guy could be the janitor. I didn't even know his name. I wasn't even sure if he was going to ask how I wanted it cut or just start snipping. I had no idea what was going on.

Finally, he said, "How you want?" Obviously he didn't speak english very well, so I just said, "manageable." I'm pretty sure he had no clue what that word meant. He narrowed it down to, "Long? Short?" Oh boy. This could be scary hair by the time it was all over.

I realize this is another one of those trivial blog entries, but think about this situation - you're at a new hairstylist and you can only communicate with the person by using the most basic descriptive words. For me, it was difficult - my hair is part of my identity. If people meet me when my hair is down, they don't recognize me when I put it up in a ponytail. And, vice versa. It's already happened at both of my jobs - the first time my hair was down, people thought I was someone new they hadn't met. My hair is big and curly and it commands attention. It makes its own rules, there's nothing I can do but go with it.

But even if you don't have hair that steals the spotlight, how strange would it be to go to a stylist and sit quietly while they cut your hair? For the most part, stylists seem to stick with the same conversational formulas. They ask the probing questions - are you a student? does your family live here? blah blah blah and there's always chatter to fill in the silences. I have never had so many boring conversations in my life as I have in a salon chair. Any salon chair.

So, once we got going, I was starting to dig Mennan. (His name was on his business card.) He was concentrating on the cut while I watched, and every once in a while he brought the hair between his fingertips and said, "There?" and I answered, "Okay." We had that conversation about five times. The only real substantial exchange was when I threw him off with the "manageable" request. He asked me a question, it sounded like, "Model? You see model?" I answered, "Where?" (a nice way of saying, "What the hell are you talking about? What model?") He went and got some books so I could show him a picture of what I wanted. Most of the girls in the book had straight hair, I said, "Not many curls." That's when we had are longest exchange:

Him: You perm.
Me: No, it's natural curl.
Him: You perm.
Me: Uhh... no I've never had a perm. [b/c I don't know if he's trying to argue where the curls came from or try to sell me a perm.]

He looked a little flustered this time & grabbed a big roller from the next station. He said "Big curls" and made a wavy motion w/his hand. He seemed to be really into the idea of giving me a perm with big rollers. I'm more adventurous with my hair than you might think, but I answered that one honestly and succinctly, "Costs money." He walked away - still flustered - and came back dragging the guy from the front desk. They spoke to each other in Italian while they made hand gestures and pointed at my hair. The other guy said, "He thinks you would like a perm w/the big rollers to give you long wavy curls." "How much would that cost?" "$140" [I didn't respond in english that time, just sort of a grunt with a hand-to-heart motion as if I'd been shot.] Then they argued a little bit and I heard Mennan say, "Low! Low!" and the other guy was shaking his head now. Mennan was pointing to the ground and seemed to be telling the guy to charge me less. It was funny - he was really committed to this idea of giving me a perm w/the big rollers. Finally the other guy went away and I was going to explain that I just graduated, I paid a dentist $365 to poke around in my mouth today, and the $45 haircut alone was a huge splurge. It would've been futile, so I just watched and he finished my hair in silence interrupted by a few utterances of "Here?" and then, "I shear" before he pulled out the thinning shears and make a quick snip at the ends. Not a bad idea to keep it from getting bunched up.

When I walked out, I was thinking - this was great! No b.s. conversation about my life or Brittany Spears or the weather or whatever the hell stylists talk about just to keep some rapport. This guy was kinda' cool. He was an older guy, and he seemed more suited to be welcoming Frank Sinatra into an Italian restaurant than cutting my hair. He did look like a successful night-club owner in all the mafia films. He could be a movie extra for that genre. As long as there's no dialogue.

In the end, it turns out - no dialogue is a great thing. It was weird at first when I thought he was a custodian, but after he got so inspired with the perm idea and kept checking the length over and over, I think he's probably pretty good at his job. In fact, his other job may be a successful night club/Italian restaurant owner. If it is, I bet he's good at that, too.

I'm home now and I didn't shell out the extra scratch to get it styled or blow-dried, so I walked home looking a bit like Scary Spice (Pre-Eddie Murphy) I'm going to bed super early tonight, get a good night's rest, and see how this 'do works out tomorrow. Now that it's dry, it's pretty short but I think that's a good thing. It was all length and no style. Now, hopefully, it's got some style. I think Mennan does. I can't say for sure b/c I can't communicate in anything other than a 5-10 word vocabulary, but I like him. Maybe I should go get some Italian language tapes from the library (Yes, I already have my card!) and I can keep going back to Mennan and learn Italian at the same time. $45 haircut/language lessons? Seems like a money saver when you throw that in!

I hope you are all doing well and are not spending more than $25 on a haircut. I may have to do what I told Mennan I was going to do before I get a perm, "Piggy bank."

It's starting to rain and I'm getting sleepy. I'm skipping laundry night and putting it off a couple of days. I'm way too tired. G'night everyone and stay out of the rain! And remember my tale of how nice it can be when you don't have to share an obligatory conversation with someone else. Even if they do have your vanity in their hands.