today we went and did something that i thought i'd never see twiddle thumbs do: ice skating. her friend invited her to go ice skating. since i haven't done that since like 5th grade i wanted to go too. in recent years they built a rink down the street from the high school i graduated from and they sent a postcard to the house (otherwise i would have never known) so that's why i had thought about going ice skating in the past few months and this was a happy coincidence.

twiddle thumbs's friend came by to pick us up and took us to the very rink i used to go to in elementary school, norwalk ice arena. damn, things seem much smaller when you're an adult! twiddle thumbs is chicken-shit scare of roller skating, ice skating, etc. it's a miracle that we were able to get her on the ice even once, let alone 3-4 times! the first few times were just about getting on the ice to get the feet used to the skates and the slippery surface. she clung to the wall like her life depended on it. mostly we just acted as support for her. emotional support to get her on the ice, physical support to keep her upright on the ice.

i tried to skate out and do a lap each time we went out on the ice to get used to things. afterall, it's been like 20 years and it's not like i was ever good at it! it really is starting from scratch. each time i was wobbly but like i said, it's been awhile. plus, everyone knows rental shoes/skates are the worst. there's only so much you can do with them. for like 5 seconds i tried to skate backwards because that's something i was never able to do well, even average, but i used to be able to roller skate forwards pretty damn fast. i've never been able to do flips, tricks, etc. going around in a little circle on ice skates is pretty fun and easy but twirling yourself around like a figure skater is something that takes a lot of practice. there were these little kids out there who could do it so well. the majority of the people on ice were kids.

mexican and colby jack on ice

and now, why the title "mexicans on ice". 'cos it's funny. damn funny. hey, how many mexican figure skaters do you see in the olympics? twiddle thumbs and she said there were no rinks in her neighborhood growing up so we had to show her some mexicans on ice. the rink is in norwalk and norwalk isn't the greatest of neighborhoods but it's not terrible either. it's very much populated with mexicans (there could be other latinos around but mexicans are the strongest in numbers) and it's about lower-middle class to upper-working class and with few exceptions every suburb on this side of LA has gangs so some might consider it a barrio. to me though, i'll probably label any neighborhood with bars on the windows as some sort of ghetto and norwalk qualifies. with all the little kids i saw skating so well (kids adapt quickly), perhaps in a few years there will be mexican-american figure skaters in the olympics and you'll know where they're from.

p.s.
this is skullblog's 1000th entry. woo hoo!