January 22nd, 2013 - Go ice skating in North Carolina

I have to admit that sometimes, I can be kind of a snob.  I turn my nose up at movies that I think will be terrible, and I belittle books that I think will be poorly written trash.  I've started making an effort to change this attitude about certain things, and this blog is a reflection of that.  I can't let my preconceived ideas about something completely sway my opinion of it (although, in the case of Tyler Perry, my opinion was spot on).

I'm from Maine, and if you saw the weather reports from there this morning, you know that it is a very cold place in the winter.  Which means that I grew up with an abundence of snow and ample opportunities to go ice skating. I learned to skate on a little duck pond at the Hyde School, a private boarding school in my hometown of Bath.

The duck pond, pre-Arctic temperatures

There was a soccer field that they would flood in the winter, and growing up, skating on Goddard's Pond was a favorite activity.  And when I was in high school and in college, I did participate in some ice racing on the lakes when they froze over.  Not as a driver, but as the screaming backseat passenger certain that the ice was going to cave at any second.

I say all this because everytime I drove by the Piedmont Winterfest in downtown Greensboro, I scoffed at the little rinky dink rink that they had set up outside in the park.  They've been setting this up every winter for years down here, and since I've lived here, I've never gone to it.  I thought to myself that it couldn't be fun and that it would be a waste of time.

In the spirit of the blog (and at Elizabeth's insistence), I got over these feelings and went ice skating last night.  I hadn't been skating in years, so I was a little rusty at first.  Ok...a lot rusty.  I wobbled and weebled, and I did end up falling down a time or two.  Ice isn't as forgiving as I remember...

The rink was small, and the ice wasn't in the best condition.  However...it was still a lot of fun.  Skating around with the gal, and watching her twirl around under the lights, was a pretty wonderful thing to do.  It didn't cost all that much, and for an hour I was reminded of all the times I'd gone skating as a kid.  A time when bills didn't matter, and a time when the most pressing issue was whether or not you could stay outside a little bit longer before you had to do your homework.

If I turn my nose up at these kind of experiences, I'm going to miss out on a great deal of things.  And I don't want to look back on my life and think about all the chances for fun I had that I passed up.  So instead, I'll just keep skating down here in North Carolina.

Because holy shit, it was -25 in Maine today.  How are y'all still living up there?!?!