Ice skating is romantic and fun

Bryant Park ice skating rink or it was in my imagination. Last night, my husband David and I ventured to Bryant Park’s iceskating rink. After three years of saying “we should go ice skating,” we were finally doing it. Yeah! It’s before the holidays, so there wasn’t this monstrous, forbidding line wrapping around the park, but there were other signs that maybe we should’ve turned back. I fell twice last night. For the first fall, I wiped out faceforward on the steps, with my gigantic backpack pinning me earthward, and bloodied a knee–and this was before I got on the ice. Uh oh. I am at an age where when I fall, I just lie there. I’m no longer easily embarrassed about looking foolish, and really, on some days, my spirit is such that I just want to lie down on the ground anyway. Once we got in, rented our skates, shoved our belongings into a locker the size of a gnome coffin (sorry gnomes), we were on our way! Luckily, there weren’t many people like me desperately clinging to the walls around the rink, so I had the area to myself. Eventually, I let go and went a couple of rounds on my own giggling with nervousness, observed a gray-haired lady drop down on her bum, and quickly, soon followed with my own tremendous fall. I pitched face forward thunderously, and got the wind knocked out of me. At this point, I would very much like to bawl like a six-year-old, but then I remember, I’m in public and I’m 34, so I just lay on the ice not moving, which I think made the staff nervous because suddenly a succession of three male employees with official yellow jackets were by my side and skated me off the rink. They were so fast! David even kicked one of the them in the knee by accident in all the eagerness to help. After I got interrogated by the EMT, I was free to sit on the bench, and tried to figure out whether I wanted to venture on the ice again. I’m all about the “get back in the saddle” and I didn’t want to disappoint my husband. Only when when David very kindly said “let’s go home. We don’t need no stinking rink” did we leave. He’s good to me.

I was on the ice all of ten minutes. Awesome.

Thank god for Pedro Almovodar

Pedro Almovodar Look at this man. I love this man (apologizes to my husband). I’m so grateful Pedro Almovodar is a part of this world and making movies. I’m not kidding. He totally adores and celebrates women. All his films show great-looking women who struggle and juggle a multitude of worries, whether it’s work, cheating men, dead bodies, incest, lost love, etc. His plots are straight out of telenovelas, so maybe not for all, but I always leave a Pedro Almovodar flick with strong desires to wear red, big hoop earrings, and puffed-up pride in being a woman. Check out Volver, with the warm and glamorous presence and cleavage of Penelope Cruz. (who knew) She’s stressed out in the entire flick as a mother, daughter, sister, wife, restaurant owner, and there are a lot of scenes where she’s lifting these crazy heavy objects, like refrigerators. One of the other great characters is a pragmatic, buff hooker. Check it out.

Volver cast

Goodbye Oradell!

front of the houseWe lived here for twenty-two years and sold it in like the worst market possible. (Every time the Times ran a piece on how this fall, home sales were experiencing their worst slump in thirty years, I had a mini coronary at my desk.) I thought I’d feel more sentimental, since melacholy is my middle name, but in the rush, I haven’t had to worry about those feelings. Good bye old house! Good bye old memories! Good bye elementary school, junior high school, high school, ex boyfriends! Good football games at Bergen Catholic filling our lawn with high school trespassers! Our neighbor George is 82 years old, and when my mother went to say good-bye to him, he cried, which made her cry, and they both hugged. Poor things. He said we were good neighbors.

happy halloween

at the risk of sounding like the children at the party who won’t play, i hate dressing up for halloween. too much pressure. i want to come up with a cool costume and then i just get paralyzed and can’t think of anything. i went to a party where the creative hostess marla and gretchen sewed themselves into a skintight mummy outfit, forgetting to allow for a pee outlet. luckily, this year, my good friend joslyn told me to go as a deviled egg. she found the costume on the internet. all we had to do was dress in all white, pin a yellow oval onto our bellies, and find devil horns. well, all the satan horns were sold out at target, so what we got instead was this. If we ever get my husband’s phone camera to download pictures, I’ll post a picture.

deviled eggs