Ice party.

Emma's quite talented (not to mention stylish).

The other day I was privileged to be the guest of honor at my little sister Emma's eighth birthday party. We held it at the local figure skating rink where Emma has been practicing her skills. She's never taken lessons, but she can fall into a two-footed spin almost as well as I can and zooms around on her little skates like she's the Tasmanian Devil. Eleven seven- and eight-year-old girls were invited to the rink for her party, and I helped everyone strap on their bright blue party hats and rental skates before pushing them out onto the ice. I was there as adult-skater supervision--to make sure no one got stranded or hurt in the pre-Christmas crowds. We assumed most of the guests would find their legs and make their way around the rink just fine. Yeah, we thought wrong. During my first lap around the ice I picked up no less than three little girls, one of whom (the blonde in the picture below) had retreated to a corner to sob at her inadequacy. "I c-c-can't skaaate!" she sobbed as I glided over and scooped her up. "Yes, you can," I reassured. "I'll help you."

note my frazzled smile, as well as my "Designated Party Adult" cone hat.

Laps two and three brought me no less than three other hangers-on, and let me tell you, it is dang hard to keep your own balance while holding up six eight-year-olds. We formed a huge chain, which effectively gave us a wide berth as others swerved to avoid clotheslining themselves on our arms. It all worked out, though--maybe a little too well. I heard that little redhead bragging to her mom about how fantastic a skater she turned out to be and I laughed to myself as the mom promised to take her back to the rink to practice. Hope you can skate, mom. :-)

In other news, I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. My parents found me some beautiful Arabic/English short story compilations (some with CDs so I can hear them read!) and I can't wait to rock my new snow coats, shoot some new film, and use up my gift cards. Gotta love the holidays. :-D