"Moon River"

A classic movie song, and more. It's more difficult to sing than I thought, when I was paying attention to it. It's certainly these kind of stretches and experiments that teach me something worthwhile.

Today my husband and I tried curling for the first time. My husband's been fascinated with this sport since the Winter Olympics four years ago, and this year's Olympic games inspired him to sign us both up for this set of instructional sessions. The classes are located at the Neville Island Sports Center, which we had never been to, and that felt like an mini-adventure all on its own, entering another little bit of Allegheny County that we had never seen. We have two more evenings after tonight to get the very basics of this game down.

My husband had never been on an ice rink for any reason until tonight. I hadn't known that. I never was a very proficient ice skater myself, but we went a few times a season while I was growing up, usually with my Girl Scout troop. My daughter's been ice skating several times so far, and I'm hoping that I'll get her out more, as she seems to enjoy it.

Curling is a rather odd game, and it looks a lot simpler on television. Stones slide along the ice, like a winter game of shuffleboard or ice bocci. The stone is moving much faster in real life than I would have thought as well, as we're somewhat frantically 'sweeping' ahead of it, or not, to increase our chances of hitting the bullseye in the center of the 'house'. When it was my turn I found the combination of balance and momentum and form a little tricky. It's humbling, not that I need much practice with those kinds of experiences. It's always good to try something really new, very different, and this was certainly it for today. It's a real bonus to have it be something that my husband and I could try together for the first time.