Datebook: Tuesday, July 25th

One week until Lake Placid and the to-do lists are now falling off the counter.

Of course, on the top of each list I should write “don’t be nervous”, but we can’t talk about that. No one is nervous. Everyone is prepared. That is the face we are to put on anyway—but we can’t buy that at the Nordstrom’s cosmetic counter. So it is, Don’t worry about a thing—it isn’t that early in the season and by next week we will have at least five run-throughs completed so, what’s to worry about? Certainly not the costumes--I just hope the beading doesn’t melt off the dresses on the 15 hour drive—we are picking up the costumes on the way—it is supposed to save time. Some might think having the costumes a week or two earlier might be more comforting but I guess picking them up this way with add to the excitement and that sense of newness.

Still, nothing brings that sense of calmness like turning off of I-84 and actually heading toward Lake Placid (after thinking you were almost there at Albany!). Every year I keep telling myself I will go to those little towns and shops we pass en route and have iced tea on the veranda, or I will go hiking to discover some little waterfall with a doe and fawn drinking peacefully in the shimmering sunlight. But, each year I am pulled back to the rink, night after night, to watch endless practice groups, and compulsory dances like some Pavlovian mother who salivates at the opening bars of the Hickory Hoedown or the Starlight Waltz. And we look around, we mothers, because we are there to support each other as much as every skater who puts a blade on the ice. We are there to watch groups we don’t know, because we do know how much went into getting there (and if it is a higher group maybe what the competition will be like next year).

I run through the things to get in my head: tights (18.00 a pair and holes after one wearing!), copies of music, car serviced, hair cut, brow wax, books on tape for the drive, snacks for the car, champagne and tequila (depending on which end of the group they fall nearest to) juice boxes for them either way, lipstick, Kleenex, breath mints. Can I buy some magic charm that really works?

In Walgreens the cashier is a bit freaked out when I ask her what music they are playing throughout the store. It is barely audible which is why she hesitates and says “just some taped music from the eighties, ma’am”. I’m not sure which is more offensive, the “ma’am” or “music from the eighties”, when the song drifting through the deodorant and Gatorade is clearly my daughter’s tango music. It is tango isn’t it? I mean, did anyone check the beats to make sure it is a tango and not just some Bon Jovi knock-off? I leave the store like I have Jamie Summers, six-million dollar woman ear and head home to my lists.

I am not nervous.

Mombo #9