Ok, where the hell is it?

Nora, I'm sorry it was so fraught. But it's good to be home and able to relax.

Sumi, heat goes up, not down, so I wouldn't worry about heating the basement. But if you can cover the radiator holes with cardboard or meat tray styrofoam and a rug or something, you'll stop the basement cold from leaking into your space.

My favorite skating music? Anything by Miklos Rozsa. No, seriously.

Our rink was a member of the big federation of American competitive skating rinks (roller), and hosted competitions at least twice a year, with our skaters traveling to other rinks several more times a year to compete.

I took dance and beginning school figures, but never had the physical ability for figures, neither singles, pairs, nor fours.

But that's what I always wanted to skate--fours. Two men, two women, with routines that were not simply mirroring pairs, but with moves and tricks that required four skaters to complete. Never got to do it, though.

My best memories are actually of things like finding the girl's room too full to change, and swapping my shoes for skates, latching my case and using it for a stool to put my skates on. Or using the funeral-home freebie sewing kit from my purse to baste an unmoored string of sequins on someone's costume back into place, or providing a spare pair of tights or boot covers in an emergency, or cutting the broken lace out of a skater's boot and relacing it between their free style routine and their dance number.

I remember holding my breath when Alice went for her double loop, or cheering when Fred and Ann's tango blew everyone else off the floor. It was a family, a small, quirky circus family in the middle of my church-and-school-going life, and it was marvelous for me.

I also remember mastering the dance turn, the shift from forwards on the right foot to backwards on the left, and back again. And the break at the hip and ankle in the lean that Fred and Ann did, and no one else seemed able to learn. The sensation of flying, of speed, of perfect balance and a kind of invisibility--the problems and life-difficulties I carried in my short, chubby little body fallen away in grace and speed. I was so rarely graceful, skating was like magic for me.

My advice is similar to David's but less... absolute.

You're never going to please them completely. So do whatever you can to make it more pleasant for yourself even if it will piss them off.

Stay at a hotel, bring some snacks, open another bottle of wine, walk into the next room and call your friend who is at the hospital with her brother the fifth or sixth time in two days its time to do the dishes again because you'll help again the next time, dammit...

{{Nora}} Welcome home, my dear! Sweet dreams in your very own bed await you.

Ok, with my fancy searchin' and readin' skilz, I have figured out buffistarawk is hidden in Injun Joe's cave, or therabouts. Can someone drop me the pertinent info at my profile addy?

Muchas gracias!

Nora -- glad you and Tom are safe back at home.

My cat Ivan is still totally upset about the whole - changing the heat thing. I took his food dish down to the basement to try to get him to follow the food upstairs and it didn't seem to be working. So, I went into my hallway and moved the small bookshelf that blocks the opening to the pipes in the bathroom and called him from there. And I could hear him calling back but couldn't see him. So I went back into the kitchen (where the door down to the basement is) and he was in the kitchen. The door was shut. How the heck did he do that?

So now he is low-walking around the apartment like he's never been here before, but at least he is at home.

Catnip, sumi? With tuna juice as a lagniappe?

Insent Erin.

Mille grazie, bellisima!

I would have done that but I didn't need to. . who knew that cats had the power to teleport? (And how scary is it that cats have the power to teleport.)