If you’re close to running out of gas and you have the time to stop and fill up, go ahead and do it.

It’s tempting to think:  “I’ll just do it tomorrow,” or “Ew, it’s cold” or “Gee, I’d rather not miss MythBusters,” but the fact is that if you don’t fill up now, tomorrow will be
cold
and rainy
and you’ll be running late for a meeting
and you’ll have just painted your nails.

(And you’ll be that much closer to being stranded on the side of the road.)

aklikins and I went skating again tonight, and (being one who overthinks things), I’ve cataloged:

1. Check your wheels.
2. Duct tape is your friend.  I can’t remember where I’d originally read about long-distance runners taping their feet with duct tape, but given that I’m just about the blisteriest girl on the planet, I figured it couldn’t hurt.  I covered the bottom of both feet with tape (which is surprisingly easy since you can tear the tape to make little “darts” for arches and whatnot), which looked ridiculous (and elicited many amused comments when everyone was de-skating at the end of the night), but — hey — not a blister in sight!  This is, for me, a minor miracle, as I can wear “so-comfy-they’re-ugly-euroshoes” (like Merrills or Monroes) and STILL get blisters.
3. Tighter laces are not always better.  I’ve always tried to lace the boots up really really tight as it made me feel more secure (and helped prevent rubbing and therefore blisters).  Now since I’ve solved the blister issue (two words that are kinda fun to say in a row… try it), that is unnecessary, so I tried looser lacing.  To my amazement, with looser laces it didn’t feel like my arches were cramping and my shins didn’t hurt.  (This is one of the reasons I don’t like inline skates or skiing… the boot holds your foot at an angle, which makes my arch cramp up.  Apparently my foot needs to flex.
4. Your feet belong under your body.  The analogy that I finally came up with is that it’s like walking in really high heels (or a catwalk walk), where your feet need to fall in a line as opposed to parallel.  This is, of course, an over exaggeration, but it helped to think of it this way when I was trying to get the hang of balancing and shifting my weight.
5. Your weight is shifted forward compared to where it is when you’re standing normally… you can’t stand up straight, as that leads to flailing (which leads, in my case, at least, to falling).
6. The boots do help — the ankle support is useful.  I had tried some “tennis-shoe style” skates and my ankles were way too loosey-goosey in them.  I suspect that with practice this would not be so much of an issue (or maybe even if you don’t have little toothpick-ankles), but as a novice, Use The Boots, Luke.
7. You don’t have to hold the skates on your feet, they are already laced on and aren’t going to fall off, so relax. I realized after about a half hour that I was clenching my feet (sort of like you do in order to keep a pair of flip-flops on), and this was leading to exhaustion and cramping and whatnot.  aklikins pointed out that I really didn’t need to ***GRIIPPP*** the skates and he was right.  I loosened up and things got better.
8. You will fall.  You will look stupid.  Get over it

Which leads to

1. Fear is not your friend.  It’ll make you fall faster than anything.

Public Service Announcement:  Check Your Wheels!

No, not your *car* wheels, your ROLLERSKATE wheels!!    What do you mean, you haven’t rollerskated in 15 years?

Well, neither had I until last night.

And I was all shakey and flailing and windmilling my arms around and huffing and puffing and generally having a really rough go of it for the first two hours we (aklikins and I) were at the rink.  I’d make it once around the track then have to pull over to the wall (blessed wall. happy wall.  nice, solid wall) to hang on for a while and pant.  Within the first 30 minutes I had to have a half a bottle of water *and* a half a bottle of Gatorade 1

Now, I know I’m not in the best of shapes.  And I know I’m a heck-of-a-lot older than I was the last time I did this.   Still, though, GEEEZ, it was *hard work*.  I must’ve told 20 people (as they were lapping me, of course) that this was a whole lot harder than I remembered it being.  At one point I looked at Adrian and said “It feels like I’m skating on wooden blocks!”

Fast forward to 9:30pm.  We’d been skating (me, quite courageously, I’ll add) for almost 2 hours by that time 2 and I had to take (yet another) a break.  I was leaning against the air conditioner vent (my new favorite skating rink place), when I crossed my legs and idly spun one of my wheels.

Which went about one-and-a-half rotations then stopped.

Gina: “Hey.  My wheel doesn’t spin”
Adrian:  (spins my wheel). “Wow, it doesn’t.”
Gina: “Try yours”
Adrian:  (spins his wheel.  Goes around and around and around and around it does)
Gina: (feeling like a bit of a dolt) “No wonder this was so hard!!!!”

So I went over to the skate shop, threw my leg up on the counter and asked them to fix it, please.3

They did, and I headed (with some trepidation — what if it *wasn’t* the wheel and I just *suck*?) back to the floor.  But hooray!!! Rollerskating *is* fun, after all!  Wheeeeee!

Now — who is up for a skating party? (We’ll check all the wheels first!)

1 Note to self:  Orange Gatorade tastes like Tang and is pleasantly nostalgia-inducing.  The disco music and lights may have helped with that.
2 Minus, of course, the frequent “I-must-stop-and-rest-now” breaks.
3 Which they did by loosening the wheels (with the skates still on my foot, so I didn’t even have to relace!).

aklikins and I were heading home from Ken’s Corny Korn Maze 1(which is *waaaaay* Southeast of Raleigh) and stopped at a Chick-fil-A for dinner.

The night manager was talking with a young Asian girl who was applying for a position.

I think the manager was trying to determine the applicant’s level of comfort with English when he asked:  “Where’d you learn to speak English at?”

1 It took us an hour and a half.  My excuse was that it was dark.