A girl's dream

Even though I said we abducted my mum from Florida to throw a party to celebrate her birthday, she actually had an additional agenda item.   Oh, we HAD  the party last night and she had a lovely time. She looked gorgeous! And, we ate a lot of food and drank a lot of booze (thanks Bill and Kevin) and she stayed up really late.

However... when she woke up this morning she reminded us all that her intended purpose was to go skating. She used to skate a lot when she was a kid and she adores skating. But, she hasn't skated in a long time and there are no rinks near her in Florida.

We pulled her old skates out of the basement and headed over to the Pepsi Center (now known as the Northtown Center) for the "free skate" at 1:00 p.m.  As I looked over to my mum in the car I noticed she had a peaked cap on - one she bought in Ballymena, Ireland that says "Ballymena" on the brim (note to movie fans - home of Liam Neeson and of my mother's mother). I asked her what the heck she was doing with the hat on - it wasn't really skating garb - and it was kind of perched awkwardly on her head.  She said she was wearing it "for her mum". I caught the eyes of Will and Emma in the rear view mirror (her skating buddies) and their eyes went wide.  How sweet and sad and marvelous is that? An 80 old grandmother thinking about her own dear mum ...

Anyway.... the rink.  Man, that place was humming!  After a series of false starts with some rental skates that she hated, we opted for her own skates that had a little rust but were still pretty sharp. The ice sharpener guys said it would be an hour before we could get the skates sharpened - and we were not about to waste time in line waiting for HIM. We were here to SKATE.

So rusty skates it was.

By the time she got on the rink she had created a bit of a stir (average age at Northtown is about 12.5 years so she kind of stood out)  and a few people were watching in anticipation as she made it round the rink. And she DID! She had Will on one side and Emma and the other and they had a BLAST. Just what she wanted for her birthday! She had a huge smile on her face as she unlaced her skates and pulled on her boots.

And when we got home Bill had made mum a superbly delicious prime rib sandwich (left over from last night's dinner party)  that was so rare it was almost dripping blood. And she devoured it, the way an athlete would.