My ears are all full of water. I swam this morning (1 mile), and Ted and I went to Gwennie’s for breakfast/brunch,and it was quite good. And now I’m … procrastinating, pretty much. I should be doing some writing, and I’ll probably get around to it in a while, but I’m, er. What am I doing? Oh. Looking for Shane’s phone number so I can call him to tell him when the puppy is coming in.
*calls Shane*
Hm. That particular bit of procrastination is now taken care of. Although I should call his cell phone, too…
*calls Shane again* Okay, *there*, now that’s really taken care of. Yay! See, Emily rescued a puppy whom she really couldn’t keep, and so yesterday afternoon I sent out an email to one of the local mailing lists I’m on saying ‘is anybody looking for puppy?’ and explained the situation. An old coworker of mine from Internet Alaska (who didn’t know who I was, and who was subsequently razzed by the rest of the list) said he’d been thinking about another dog, and volunteered to at least foster the puppy and see if it fit in with his household. If not, someone else on the list knows people at the SPCA shelter, and someone else works with a woman who works with a Friends-of-Pets foster care system, so the puppy is on his way out of Kotlik right now and will have at *least* a temporary home and maybe a permanent one, and there are back-ups and shelters and foster help to find him a new home if he doesn’t fit in at Shane’s. So! HOORAY! He’s a very cute puppy. I mean, they all are, of course, but I’m glad I know people who could help this one. And I suspect Emily is glad too. :)
Geni got her Big Box O’Books! I’ve been sending her books printed in English (although not, I admit, with any sort of regularity), because books printed in English cost a Whole Heck Of A Lot in the Netherlands. She has in turn sent a bunch on to Emily, and presumably they’ll eventually work their way back to me, which is all kinda nifty! Plus there were Christmas goodies in the box, and despite being a couple of weeks old now, she says they’re still very good, so yay!
Let’s see. Ears still full of water. I’m very self-conscious at the swimming pool right now, because my swimsuit is not really quite big enough (stupid Speedo site didn’t have useful sizing charts and so I miscalculated the size, which became apparant as soon as the suit got here, because *it* had useful sizing on its tag, but anyway), and so I’m all flabby and poking out of the suit very unattractively. Fortunately, for some value of fortunate, this ceases to bother me once I’m actually in the water. And, well. If I swim enough, presumably the flab will go away and the suit will fit me better. None-the-less, for the moment I’m self-conscious.
Hah! Sports Authority has gotten their new shipment of ice skates in, which means I should be able to go over and see if size 9 skates fit me since the size 8s don’t, and then I’ll be able to, um. Try ice skating.
I literally don’t *remember* the last time I ice skated. It was a very long time ago. It’s likely I’ll be a bit wobbly at first, although I did fine (so long as I didn’t have to do anything tricky, like stop or go up a hill) on in-line skates, so it oughtn’t be too bad. UAA has a year-round ice rink, and Westchester Lagoon has a gigantic ice loop that they zamboni in the winter (although I don’t think the lagoon is frozen enough yet for them to do that), and the Ben Boeke or something like that ice rink is on Northern Lights about a mile or so from where we live, so it is my Stated Intention to get out and skate a couple times a week, at least until summer, when I’d rather be biking. :)
(My idea at the moment, see, is to swim or skate 3-5 times a week for the cardiovascular exercise, and do a full-body workout 2 times a week. I figure breaking up the swimming with skating will keep me from getting bored. We’ll see!)
I should go put some pea soup into some containers for my parents aaaand I should get the blankets that are theirs and bring it all to them and go see about the skates. Yes. That’s what I should do.
And then maybe take a nap. *sleepy eyes*
When I took the beginning ice skating class at UAF, I’d never been on ice skates before in my life. And I didn’t fall down until like the third class or so, which had nothing to do with natural ice-skating ability and everything to do with the instructor! I can attempt to describe his ‘breaking in’ process, but it’s been awhile. ;)
I think the most helpful thing was having us walk around on this rubber padding stuff in our skates for about 10 or 15 minutes or something before we ever got on the ice, so we could accustom ourselves to balancing like that. Strap on skates, wobble around a bit. Then stand in one place and lift first one foot and then the other, gradually increasing the number of seconds you’re standing on one skate without falling over.
Then move out onto the ice. I forget what we did then. ;) But I do remember him having us take off our gloves and drape them over our hands, holding our arms out from our sides and our hands parallel to the ground- the goal was to keep the gloves from falling off. Ie, your balance will be better (and you’ll turn slower!) if your arms are stretched out a bit.
That’s about all I remember from that first class. I do remember the first time I fell down, at the 3rd (or 4th?) class: I fell onto the /insides/ of my knees. Talented, huh? Owowow.
Ow ow! Well, I used to skate quite a lot when I was little, so I’m not *very* worried about it. :) But it’ll be interesting! :)