Summertime Skating

Practice Ice. Stitch and I are in the car, heading to the rink. Stitch is reading his Basic Skills book. "Someone needs to put a sticker next to 'waltz jump'," he says. "I can do that."
"You can do a lot of things in that book."
"Yeah!"

We get to the rink and watch the last of some lessons, and then it's practice time. I send Stitch off to start forward stroking and Another Mom hits me. "Haven't seen you in awhile!"
"Lovely skirt, nice to see you again," I really do like the skirt.
"Daughter has lessons, what are you doing here?"
"Practice, nothing special."

Coach arrives and speaks to Other Mom. "Do you have music?"
"No," says Other Mom. "I don't know how to do it. Do you have anything we can use?"
"She'll do it for you," Coach points to me. "She does a nice job."
Other Mom whips on me. "Can you? My friend can't do the fade in or out. We couldn't make it sound nice."
"Sure. Just tell me what you want."
Other Mom is now ignoring me and talking to Coach about something else. Stitch has come off the ice for his next task, backwards something. I send him back out, Coach goes out with Daughter, and Other Mom turns back to me. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"Just tell me what you want, what she likes."
"Can you do Love Shack?"
"Absolutely."
"It's got to be ninety seconds, and I forget what the leeway is..." she turns back to the ice, looking for Coach.
"It's plus or minus ten seconds," I say. "No worries."
"I should check," she keeps looking out.
"No, it's fine, Stitch's is the same."

Other Mom and I settle business and they depart. Stitch is skating, playing around, doing his program. Another Mom approaches me. "Nice to see you!"
"Oh, hi," I realize that this is pretty incriminating, me standing there with a notebook and stopwatch.
"Where is Stitch?"
"On the ice."
"What is he doing?"
He's knitting socks. "Just practicing today."
"Oh. My boy is having lessons. Is Stitch having lessons over the summer, too?"
"For part of the summer, and then he leaves for a few weeks."
Other Mom gets that awful look. "Oh. My boy is only skating once a week over the summer."
I look out and he's having lessons with a Coach. But just once a week? Here? My brain quirks a bit but I nod and smile.

"Mom!" Stitch calls me over. "What's next?!"
"Choice," I go to him. "Program again or Stupid Duck?"
Stitch finds the new misnomer hilarious. "Stupid duck!"
"Two laps, go!"

Other Mom comes over to inspect. "What is this?"
"Oh, practice routine. Nothing special."
"You got this from Coach?" Other Mom is taking a hard look at the notebook.
"Sure."
"That's nice."

No two words were ever more dangerous coming out of a mother's mouth. I know, because I say them a lot, too. Other Mom retreats to the lobby, and I time Stitch to see how fast he can do a lap of Power Threes. He beats his old time by seven seconds, and this makes him happy. "This ice is too crowded," he says. "I keep running into people when I do my program."
"Well, you've just got to work with it. Nothing I can do."
He rolls his eyes, and tries again.

We head home and I cut Love Shack, omitting the parts about dancing naked and glittered mattresses. I save the start and ending, coming in at 1.27. Not bad. Stitch and I watch some TV, and he's up until well past nine again. Summer is definitely upon us. Tomorrow they go to the rink again without me, and I can't wait to hear how that goes. Grandma will deliver the music to Coach, and Other Mom will have Coach deliver payment. It's not much, but it buys me a coffee treat.

All in all, a good day.