Gold is in my color wheel of life

It is and I'll tell you why.

Figure skating.

It's been a love in my life for some 15 or so years now. I think I found it back in the Rosalind Sumners era and have been glued to every competiion and exhibition I can get my eyeballs on since.

Now, here's the thing. I was a roller skater for many moons and when I made the transition to figure skating, it was fairly easy. I slapped a pair of used puppies on, scooted off onto the ice, stumbled a bit for about 10 minutes, then applied my roller skating techniques to ice skating.

In essence, I was da BOMB, baby. I could skate backwards, stop on a dime, do a waltz jump, scratch spin and a spiral on one leg. I was working on Russian splits when my career ended tragically because I was pursuing Ms. Creamed Corn 1980 or something. LOLLOL

Anyway, back then, I didn't watch skating. I didn't begin to watch it until long after my skates were hung up. I didn't pick it back up again because they banned skating on our lake where I'd begun my quest to be the next Dorothy Hamill as a kid. We didn't have an ice skating rink in my small town, so I watched and learned and watched some more. But I know all the elements now. I can tell a triple axel, from a triple lutz. I know circular footwork and throw triples like I know every lump of cellulite on my ass and I want IN.

Not on the cellulite--the skating.

That brings us to today. R played ice hockey with some friends for a few years, so he's a good skater. He said, "Let's go skating, Bun." I said, "It's been 14 years and I think I might be wobbly."

Indeed, wobbly was a poor substitute for my pathetic-ness.

Here in TX, there are tons of rinks and R has one right near him. So, we have a date. Lunch and skating. Long story short, I get my rental skates, slap 'em on and head out onto the ice.

The chill of a frozen tundra, gloriously slick and glassy calls to me. My heart pounds with the utter freedom I'll experience as the wind from my high speed skating blows through my long, lucious locks. I envision myself in a cute little outfit. Ya know, black see through arms, a bejeweled bodice and a LONG skirt by my ankles, so when I jump you can't see my butt.

I step out onto the ice and in my mind, I am The Kwan-anator. I shall own this ice. I'm one with it.

It, however, is not exactly one with me or even very friendly. It's like we never mated. Like I'm some cheap one night stand to be used and discarded.

In fact, it doesn't much like me at all. it mocks me. Hell, the other "one with the ice" skaters mocked me too. Silently, but I just know they were giggling like hyenas about what a lame, middle aged, saggy assed woman was attemtping.

I was attempting to STAND. That's all. I really wasn't asking a lot. I was as wobbly as a newborn calf. By hours end, my feet burned like I'd wallked on toxic waste. My toe throbbed in time with my blood pressure.

I kept watching all these little kids zipping around and doing all those damned jumps and I said to R, "Go knock her skates out from under her, would ya? Her frilly pink fru-fru shit is pissing me off and I can't concentrate." LOLLOL

However, I am not to be defeated. The agony and all. Sooooo, I go back. I experience ten-fold the pain I did two days ago, but I don't care. I BELONG on this ice, damnit and I am not letting it have the best of me.

Sooooo, we go again and R says he really thinks it's the rental skates that are giving me such trouble. I think it's age and bad feet from dancing for so many years, but I sooo want to buy into it.

I make a decision. I am buying skates and by all that is Gordeeva and Grinkoff, I shall OWN this. I research online. I hunt hill and dale for yon skates. Finally, I find them. I find them and now, I'm 142.00$$$ poorer, but we're working out our financial debate and convincing each other we can work this out as a couple.

Soooo, I'm back again and this time, I have the magic skates. They will catapult me to stardom. See, during my research, I found out that they have an adult nationals and know where it is this year? Right here in Dallas.

I'm telling you, it's fate, kismet, dreams so cruelly shattered, finally realized. I will train, train some more, train so hard, by next year, I'll actually be able to stroke two times around the rink and my feet won't be screaming, "fire in the hole!"

I put them on. Again, I am Michelle Kwan, Peggy Flemming, Dick- big mouth- Buttons. Still in my own dreams, mind you, but I have the real deal now and I just KNOW it's going to be the magic I need to skate the hell out of a Barry Manilow song in a years time.

or not.

Yet, I persevere. I go again. Things are looking up. I took the kid with me and he fell so many times, I was looking a little like Brian Boitano by days end.

'Twas glorious...

I am not giving up. I want this. I can taste it. I watch all the other little seven year olds like a hawk, soaking up their lessons by eavesdropping. In fact, I stalk them, I listen to the skating teachers. I get so wrapped up, R reminds me my mouth is open. LOLLOL

Then, in a tragic twist of events, I am INJURED. Yes, injured, devestatingly putting my career with Cirque De soleil on ice in dire jeopardy.

I have an ingrown toenail.

it is the most agonizing fricken' thing since I had kidney stones.

I consult my sports therapist ( my mom, but who says she can't have a title?) and she confirms, indeed, 'tis an ingrown toenail with a bloody, flippin' fungus of all things.

Mom had one too. it got infected. She had to seek a doctor and have him like hack it up. I have no insurance. I am doomed to almost be a champion...elusive, fleeting dreams of gold are dashed in an instant.

Well, not so much now that my mom called the doc and it's only 500 smackeroli's to fricken' get me back on the road to gold.

Stay tuned, because by all that is costumed and cute, I'm going to enter the adult nationals in the next couple of years and I'm going to slaughter the crap out of the seniors group if it's the last thing I do.

I'm leaving with that damned tiara, er gold medal if I have to Tonya Harding the lot of them. LMAO

I'm kidding.

Tonya was a pansy. I'm MUCH smarter than Tonya and Jeff.

I'll use aresenic in their Gatorade if I have to.

LOLLOLLOLLOL

Dakota :)