Spring Cleaning

Since I was divinely inspired to clean out my garage last week, it seems the inspiration has lingered, so on Saturday I decided to ‘spring clean’ the main level of our townhome. Lola helped me condition the wood floors, Windex the coffee table and the dining room table, helped me put together our new gas grill, and she even replaced the doorknob and hardware on the front door! Lola has recently discovered that she loves to assemble things. She did a wonderful job on the front door.

We had invited her ESOL teacher to dinner this evening after ice-skating and the big debate for me was "to grill or not to grill". There were two factors involved in making this decision: 1) we had just assembled the grill and I was not as well-versed on the ease and comfort level of transitioning between the dearly departed electric grill to the gas grill, and didn’t wish to CHAR-broil (literally) the chicken, and 2) it had been raining for numerous days prior and it was still cold and soggy outside - - not the perfect grilling weather. OK, I admit it - - I’m a big weenie when it comes to cold weather. I am most certainly not going to stand out there freezing my nether parts off while I wait for our food to cook! The decision was made on Sunday morning that the chicken would be oven-baked. I will be doing a trial run before this week is over, so I can ‘become one' with the grill.

Lola and I went skating this afternoon and later met up with her teacher. I was trying out a “new” used pair of white figure skates and wondering why they felt so slow - - I had just had the blades sharpened and they just weren’t responding the way I had expected. Taking the idea from Petie, our cat, I decided to do the ‘aerodynamic speed test’ (mentioned in an earlier blog entry) and picked up my pace a little. Just as I rounded the end of the rink, a cute little boy donned in hockey gear a few sizes too large suddenly stopped, did a 180, and skated right into me. I did my best to either pick him up or move him out of the way, and I spun out. He hit the ice first, and I dove elsewhere so I wouldn’t land on top of him. I hit the ice mostly on my rear end (I am sooooo thankful there is a generous amount of cushion back there) and on the inside of my right knee. How funny when his dad came over to me to apologize and ask if I was ok, and I sprang up off the ice, and while doing so I asked the little boy if HE was ok…

The monumental thing here is that that fall was the very first I have ever had on ice skates! Now that it’s finally happened, I have to side with Lola - - if you know how to position yourself to land when you fall, it’s really kind of FUN!! I really don’t hurt at all yet, and I fully expected to be quite sore…

After skating, Lola’s teacher followed us home in her car and joined us for some of Lola’s famous guacamole as an appetizer, then some baked garlic chicken and yellow squash and peppers. We had fun and I, for one, truly regretted seeing her go home early at 8pm. Hopefully over Spring Break she will make a return visit and we’ll have a late night with some barbecue on the grill and a good movie - - or if it finally stops raining here in Atlanta (tell me, what color is the sky?? I seem to have forgotten, as it is grey here every day!!!) we can sit outside and enjoy the weather.