best laid plans

I am exhausted.

I leave tomorrow for my annual pilgrimage to Florida for Passover. For the first time in many years, Bijoux the Civil Disobedience Dog will not be in attendance, because the parents of said dog now have a baby.

A baby.

If an individual carries her dog with her everywhere in a Louis Vuitton pet carrier, is it vulgar of me to consider what that individual, times two, might spend on a baby? Maybe, but it's fun.

Passover: never a dull moment.

I've spent the week doing last-minute errands and dealing with real estate. I signed the Purchase and Sale agreement yesterday (the "P & S" in real-estate lingo). Now I get to deal with the mortgage company. We're expecting to close at the end of April, at which time I can ramble at length about the new abode. Of course I'm superstitious. I'm a baseball fan.

Behind the browser screen is a to-do list. I've been busting butt on my to-do list this week, but like a hydra, it keeps growing back. It hasn't been all work and no play, though. An example: my iPod chose Wednesday night to die. I've been coveting the tiny iPod shuffle for a while, so I indulged in a little silver one and loaded it with music. My iPod was always on shuffle, anyway.

I also gave myself an hour Wednesday afternoon to skate. I'm breaking in new skates and learning a lot about skates in the process. In short, while the skates fit my feet very well (and many others did not), the boots are cut too low for my damaged ankles and the blades are too long for the way I skate. I've mostly solved the ankle problem by taping my right foot and wearing heavy nylon straps around both skates. It's fairly common for hockey players to tape the tops of their skates, but it's a subject of much debate; my ankles are beyond repair, so the hell with it.

The blades are more complicated. I'll get them adjusted when I return.

I was one of three skaters, total. I spent a while warming up, testing my edges, being careful. Then, eventually, I started skating around the faceoff circle in the center of the rink. I turned around and skated the circle backward. Slowly, I moved into crossovers. It occurred to me that I was absolutely flying. It also occurred to me that I was wearing nothing more protective than jeans. But it was exhilarating, and for a few moments, nothing else existed.

This is why I do sports.

When I settled down, I played with a couple of one-foot turns, then eased myself off the ice. The lobby was full of boys in hockey gear. I'm lousy with ages, but I'd guess nine. They were old enough to play competitive hockey, but young enough that everywhere I looked, parents were easing their kids into shoulder pads and lacing skates. Youth hockey tryouts, I was told. Little hockey players are unbelievably cute when you don't have to manage them.

Anyway. Now I get to pack and find my one-quart Ziploc baggie for airport security. Travel is such fun these days.

Skating continues.

I'm trying to turn from forward to backward on one skate (a three-turn) when the skate goes out from under me and drops me to the ice. All [redacted] pounds of me land on my lower back, just above my butt.

The shock zips up my spine as my skates join me on the ice. For an instant, I just sit there. Man, I'm too old for this.

Seatmate skates over, managing to grin and look concerned at the same time. "That one hurt," he says, offering me a hand up.

I take it and get back on my feet. "I think I broke my butt." But it's my back, really. Though much improved over years of physical therapy, I have a lousy back. My avoidance of ab crunches figures in here somewhere, too. I have, one might say politely, very little core strength.

The unavoidable fact of skating is that ice is hard. There's no way to cushion it. The only answer is to cushion me. To wit:There's also a model with pads on both hips, but I'm padded enough there.

Would anyone know I'm wearing padded underwear, or would they simply assume I have an enormous rear? Inquiring minds want to know.

(Not really.)

I've been skating for about ninety minutes when Joe joins me. Glad for an excuse to cool down, I slow to a walking pace to accomodate him. Last year, Joe jumped on the ice with his skateguards on, went down hard, and broke his femur. He skates a little every day to rebuild the muscle, but he has a long way to go.

"Are you staying around for stick practice?" I ask. Sticks and pucks are prohibited during open skate sessions; stick practice gives hockey players a chance to work on their skills.

"I think some guys have arranged a game today," he says.

Sure enough, when the men come out of the locker room, about half are in white jerseys, the others in dark. After a quick warmup, they start to play. They're surprisingly good: strong skating, clean passing, nifty stickhandling.

The game is friendly at first, but as the tempo picks up, so does the shoving. Voices rise; tempers flare. Finally, one guy throws his stick over the boards onto the bench, climbs over after it, and hurls a plastic trash can onto the ice. Then he stomps off and slams into the locker room.

Well.

Unfazed, the others gather the trash from the ice and put it back in the can. The goalies skate back to their nets.

I get the giggles and decide to leave before someone shoots a puck at my head.

I have my first hockey-related injury. Sort of.

I've decided I want to learn to play hockey. I learned to skate on figure skates as a kid, but now I'm learning to use hockey skates, and the transition isn't easy.

It's about 7:25 and I'm down at the Zamboni end of the rink with my classmates, a doctor and a college kid, and the instructor, a little dynamo with cool hair. We're going back and forth across the rink doing drills. The current drill is to skate to the center (the goal crease) and pivot around so we're skating backward. For some reason (see: right- and left-handedness), this is easier to do turning one way than it is the other.

I get to the crease, pivot to my right, and in an instant I am lying with my chin on the ice, wondering whether I still have teeth.

I sit up and put a hand to my mouth. No blood. Thank God. But my teeth and head hurt fiercely and the rink is a distant roar. Someone asks whether I'm okay. I admit that I don't know. The fact that I have not yet risen from the ice is vaguely worrying me. When I try to get up, someone tells me to stay where I am.

My instructor has run off to get some help. The doctor tells me that my chin is bleeding. I had been unaware, but as I look down, I see blood splattered on my clothes. The women return with gauze dressings and I apologize for bleeding on their ice. I am helped to my feet and off the ice.

In the bathroom, I soak through the gauze. The woman runs off to get more, and I step toward the mirror and lift my head. Whoa. I'm not getting out of this one without a hospital.

We bandage my chin so it's not bleeding. I take off my skates, wipe them dry, put on the blade guards. I hang out long enough to know that I'm not likely to collapse while driving, then strike out for the local hospital. The hospital staff is surprised at what I'd been doing ("Ice skating? In July?") but they stitch me up neatly and quickly and send me on my way.

I explain the late return to Zipcar and they don't charge me.

My teeth and head still hurt two days later, but I'll be back on the ice on Sunday with a nifty new scar. Outta my way!