Week 3: Ice Skating, Abba and "5 o'clock somewhere"

This not working thing could really be something. Your friends take you out to lunch, the stay-at-home moms actually start talking to you and you can go ice skating in the middle of the day in Prospect Park.

In a city of 10 million souls there is no one on the icy paths as you cross over to the far end of the park. You come over a hill and suddenly a blast of "dancing queen, young and sweet" insinuates itself through the recently restored Japanese pagoda.

The one new skill I have picked up as an adult is ice skating. It provides healthy activity for 5 and 7 year olds (and induces early bedtimes) and wonder of all, I am at the point of being able to cross my feet on the turns, do a hip swivel to the music and skate backwards. A friend who nearly won her state championship in figure skating has promised to annoint me in purple eye shadow and show me how to do that triple salchow thing -- or at the very least pull my arms in and spin till you get dizzy...oh and I do love the Hasidic girls who look like they are out of the '40s with their pleated skirts below the knee, wool tights and wide headbands.

Aside from running around the city meeting with incubator types -- wow, people are still starting stuff -- I am making serious inroads with the power PTA moms and the women that actually get their kids fed and homework done before 6 pm. It's an interesting, alcohol-fueled group: the hot pan-latina moms like their 30 year old mezcal -- I actually drank the worm at a kid party last weekend, while I celebrated Australia Day with a fine shiraz from the australian wine importer family down the block. Made it to the PTA auction meeting after and tried to sober up as we attempted to develop "experiential items" for the auction. I scored a good one as I remembered that a worried Wall Street mom was married to a jazz musician and as it turns out he is in the pit for the revival of West Side Story and can do tickets and a backstage tour.

Today's count:
- loads of laundry: 4
- beds changed: 2
- Lego "best spaceship I've ever made" stepped on resulting in 7 year old howl: 1
- dinner: marginal attempt at sole muenierre
- height of unfiled bills/paperwork/kid art: 5 inches and counting
- pieces of "Pirate Booty" found stuck to couch: 4