26 May 1999: Rollerblades

What ended up being in the big box was Rollerblades.

I had just finished Tuesday's entry--but not, after thinking about it, completed it--when RDC came home from his late afternoon meeting with treats for supper (particularly delicious shrimp and the makings of a capresi salad). With the box in front of us on the living room floor (our meals being a series of carpet picnics), we ate, with my basil plant contributing to the capresi. And since the box was on the living room floor, Blake was happy not only to eat in his cage but also to stay there after supper, safe from the frightening wrapping paper. After supper came the two slices of mocha torte from Alfalfa's, with the candles, and RDC asked me if I wanted him to sing and I said no. I sang for me instead, which was pleasanter for both of us.

After all that I began to unwrap the present, and continued to unwrap the present, and took just as long unwrapping the present as I possibly could, just to annoy RDC as much as its 48-hour presence had annoyed me. I did all this with my eyes closed. Finally I had all the paper off, and I asked him if the box was the right way around. I heard it spin on the carpet, and he said okay, and I opened my eyes, and then I squealed.

I put on one knee pad before I figured out what kind of socks to wear, and then of course I had to borrow a pair of Rich's tube socks. Trust him, I told him, to buy me a present requiring socks. And a stiff boot, though Rollerblades aren't as bad as ski boots. I strapped myself in and stepped gingerly around the apartment. Twenty seconds later I said okay enough of that and let's go. Holding hands--need I say RDC was in regular shoes--we exited our house and I turned toward the sidewalk.

I had noticed before that the entryway is on a bit of a slope. Parking my bike, I know I have to prop it, so it's not as if that slope was undiscovered territory. Except that I've never taken the slope with wheels on, or at least not with eight. Two I can handle. So my first fall happened ten feet out, hard, directly on my ass. Numbing it, I decided, against the inevitable falls later.

Holding hands, we manuevered me along the sidewalks and through the parking lot to the street corner. I had to cross two streets to get to the park. Carefully! The sidewalks all have corners sloped for wheelchairs, and RDC braked me as we crossed the first. Going straight, we had the right of way, but I still would have liked for the car waiting to turn left not to have laughed at me as its humans steered round me. Okay, the car itself didn't laugh, and its occupants laughed only in a friendly way, but hey, did it have to be so obvious this was my first time? The next is a busier street and RDC pulled me to ensure I got across before the light changed. And then I was in the park and okey-dokey.

Not that that means I didn't fall a couple more times, but gentler these times. I even dropped RDC's hand pretty soon. My first tutor was a six-year-old boy named Brandon whose parents apparently allow him to skate without padding, which I think is pretty stupid. Not as stupid as it would have been for me, first-timing in wrist and knee pads and with my bike helmet on, but pretty stupid. Brandon tried to teach me how to do a hockey stop, something I haven't been able to achieve in six years of indifferent skiing, where I don't risk roadburn if I fall. I would have settled for learning to brake at all.

Before I learned to brake I had to learn to start. Everything I had ever heard about rollerblading says it's like ice-skating, but unlike ice-skating, there's no serration at the front of the skate to push from. Allegedly you can skate in skis, too, and climb uphill skating on your skis, but this is a myth. I did finally figure out how to glide and to turn in very wide, slow circles, but I still can't brake.

I'll have fun learning, but I bet my butt won't.

In addition to the flowers, my father sent me a check, which I cashed today with plans of Twist and Shout. Thither I hied myself after supper Wednesday. I found the list of music I want, an ancient list I began I don't know how long ago and sent to CLH last Christmas. She doesn't like to buy music off a list because the recipient always knows what she's getting--this despite the list being about 500 albums long and despite her always wanting gift certificates. Usually when I walk into a music store, every title I knew leaps rattily from my the sinking ship of my head. Not tonight: I had my list, with the most important titles bolded. Heh. I found Kate Bush Lionheart, which was the last I needed to complete the Kate catalog, and the last because it's my least favorite of her albums. I found Shriekback's Oil and Gold and Big Night Music. I found Cocteau Twin's Blue Bell Knoll and Pink Opaque, and I found Human League's Greatest Hits and Dare. Here my quandary began. I knew I wouldn't get Pink Opaque: an import, it was four times as much as the others. But Greatest Hits wouldn't have the one really important song from Dare, would it? It did. Hmm. Plus fluffy songs from other titles. I got it instead of Dare, and now the not-great songs from Dare cavort in my internal jukebox making me feel guilty.

I hadn't seen HAO in a month when I drove in the new car! to DU. I had opened the birthday card she'd sent by way of RDC, though, and the shimmery lavender gecko was safe, if yet unnamed, in my pocket. I had never been in the building she was working in, a dorm with common areas at one end. All the residential area doors were locked but I got into the common area, which was useful because that's where she was. And despite its being common, it smelled like a dorm. I thought it was a UConn thing, the same state-issue cleansers used in the newest dorms on Hilltop and the oldest in East overrun with people. (I just dated myself--Hilltop's two dorms are now second-youngest but I've not been in the new South campus dorms.) Radcliffe didn't smell like it, but Radcliffe was Radcliffe and had suites; the quad in Harvard Yard (or whatever it's called) did smell like it. And so did DU. Anyway, she was there, and immediately we began one of our usual conversations, with any attempt by her to speak aborted by my roughshod lack of conversational skills. We ended up at Bonnie Brae ice cream--I knew Denver had to have a walkable ice cream parlor with ice cream made on the premises--and walked around the neighborhood--that we'd driven to--eating our cones.

I've been getting to know the gecko. I think he's Lyle. Lyle Lovett Lizard. Lyle Lyle Crocodile. Lavender Lyle. Leisure Suit Lyle.