I have a friends who is crazy about Disney. She loves everything about it, has all movies and CD’s. On our way to the beach a couple of weeks, I told them about the Swedish versions. They dubb the songs, meaning they have Swedish singers do translations, renditions sort of. I hadn’t listened to the songs for a while, but got a copy of a double CD to her. Now I actually listened to it again. Most of the songs…. kind of suck. Quite badly. I mean seriously. Some of the translations are just weird and doesn’t make sense. Have a listen to the Swedish versions of “Under the Sea”, “Superclaifragialisticexpialidocious” (you try spelling it…), “Zero to hero,” “Beauty and the Beast (The Celine Dion Version…. *Ican’tbreathe*)”, “Lady and the Tramp”, “Go the distance,” and finally “Part of your world (Little Mermaid, who picked the girl who couldn’t speak Swedish in the first place? Seriously….)”. These are just some of the WORST ones. There are others that are bad too, but these tops the list of stupid, non-coherent, absolutely ridiculus, word twisting, grammatically incorrect, lyric-changing, if-read-them-you-wouldn’t-know-that-they-were-the-same-song kind of “Disney” songs.

There are the very few exceptions. “Colors of the Wind” happens to be one of them. But that might be because the Swedish girl is a better singer than the American one.

Some days I wonder, what the hell am I doing? I had a fairly bad day in skating yesterday. The problem is, I don’t know quite why. The rational part of my brain is saying “Well, you did pretty well, under the circumstances. You haven’t skated for a while and you did some good edgework, did a couple of okay spins, landed some Axels, and did three decent salchows, one more than last time. It might not have been a great day, but it was definitely good enough.” However the creative part of my brain was screaming the whole time. “What are you doing? You are killing me here! You aren’t skating, you are just doing random stuff in no order, with no purpose and with no passion! You are killing me here! OMG, people are looking. What are they going to think?”

I have realized that I don’t skate well on my own. I never liked this whole private lesson thing and then skating on Freestyle sessions and then on public. I need group lessons. I need people to work together with, the friendships, the silent support group. I was always very independent on our group sessions back in Sweden, I knew what to do and how to do it, but it was different. I just can’t explain why. When I left, my skating started to go downhill. I was suddenly all alone, without a coach, without skating buddies, in a totally new rink which was half the size of my old one.

I think the last straw came in October. This is when we held a competition at my “new” rink and I skated a program as exhibition. One of my kids’s parent filmed it. It was a hard blow. Was that me? That slow person with terrible spins and jumps that barely left the ice? Oh my god. How embarrassing. What the hell had I been doing these last 15 years? After that, I pretty much stopped skating. I did it once in a while, for fun, but I put all my focus on coaching, bringing the legacy forward, helping little girls building their dreams.

After we left skating in February, my pain from an earlier accident came back. It was months until I could get back on the ice and I missed it enormously. Skating is in my blood, it’s my soul. I was dying to get back.

I’ve skated now maybe 5 times, and I am starting to see clearly again, I’m over the honeymoon period. I have a love-hate relationship to skating. It’s like being in a bad long term relationship. You aren’t doing well, you don’t love each other any more, but you are so used to the other person, that you can’t let go. You know each others kinks and pleasures, you have settled in and you feel that they are a big part of who you are. To break up would be to redefine reality, who you are as a person. And you don’t want that. It’s scary, unpredictable and require a lot of courage. Which you don’t have. You would be loosing your sense of purpose and start over. Completely over.

I have been in this relationship for 15 years now, and I don’t know who I am without skating. I really don’t. Skating has been my EVERYTHING for all this time, day and night, my number one concern. It’s hard to let go, but I know I really should. But I am terrified, absolutely bloody terrified. What am I going to do? A new hobby? But I can’t do anything but skating. It’s who I am…. See the dilemma?

As a reality-check: I know I’m not going to go to Adult Nationals. If I get into college in the spring, there’s no way I’m going to have time to train for Nationals. And I am getting in, or going insane with boredom. I have the possibility to skate once a week. Who has name it to Nationals by skating once a week? No, didn’t think so.

I’m sorry about the whole ranting, but my husband announced last night that he thinks I should go to a Freestyle session next week. My pulse jumped and I started shaking out of fear. No bloody way. I am way too self conscious to do that. Hell no. Actually, I might not go with him next week. Or I’ll leave my skates at home. Because I don’t feel like skating right now, and no kind of new music is going to change that. Maybe I just need a break.

I did it! It turned out great! Nice, salty and sort of flaky. Hubby loved it too, as did D (hubby doesn’t remember that he ate the same meat in Sweden and really didn’t like it…… I love tricking him….). It was really hard to cut, but I had hubby do that for me.

D and I got into a discussion about the Vikings. She insisted that they came after the Middle Ages, which they totally didn’t. I can’t believe that she would argue with me, the history-buff, who specializes in those two eras. I eventually whipped out a book and set the record straight, and she “humpf”‘d and slammed her door, but it got me thinking. Becky came home with the same ridiculous notion a couple of years ago, saying that her teacher told her that the Vikings came after the Middle Ages. What do they teach kids in school? What kind of ignorant and ill-informed people do they let become teachers? When I become one, I’ll set the record straight once and for all. Vikings came first! Idiot teachers……….

We are on our way to go and skate. I just finished packing lunch, and a whole lot of it too. We are having pancakes and sandwiches (with “Viking meat” of course) and then some snacks. We’ll get home late tonight, hubby’s going to Kung Fu.

Swedes are supposedly descendants from Vikings (so are Norwegians and the danish, but they are not involved in this argument). We are supposed to be fierce, independent, (blond too, and have the stupid horns on the helmet, but we all know that’s all bull) and meat-eating. I’m fairly fierce, very independent and loves meat. Sort of. As long as I don’t have to cook it. In that case, I’m a big poultry person. Meat just doesn’t seem to like me. At least not in this country. I screw up with the pork (but that might not actually be my fault, but rather the quality of American pork.) and I just feel bad about it.

But today, I am trying a recipe I wouldn’t be surprised if it had ties almost as far back as the Vikings. It’s a big piece of beef that you chuck into the oven for 12 hours on low heat (so low in fact, that American ovens don’t really have it that low…. which is why I am probably screwing up with the meat….), then take it out and let it soak and cool in salt, water and sugar (does this sound familiar? I talked about the same kind of beef a while back, around Midsummer? Yeah, that time it got spoiled by paranoid hubby….). I just took it out of the oven, and it looks a bit sketchy…. But we’ll see later how it turned out. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

I’m probably originally Flemish…. Wouldn’t surprise me. I’m great with pastries.

Today, it’s just D and me at home. My husband has gone up to the VA hospital to get a couple of things checked out, and will be home either tomorrow or on Tuesday, which means we have a couple of girl-days together. He went up today because we are expecting a tropical storm, andhe didn’t want to get caught in it driving up early tomorrow morning. So he is spending the night at a motel close to the hospital. I was going to go with him, but D decided that she wanted to stay with us this week too, and she would have been bored out of her mind spending the day at the hospital and subsequently would have driven me crazy.

Before he left, hubby went to the grocery store and loaded up food and water that would last over a week, just in case. You never know with tropical storms, we could get stuck here, and he up at the hospital. He also wanted me to be independent, and not have to call my friends for everything if things started to run out. We probably have food in the house that would last us, if needed, over two weeks.

It’s weird not to have him home, and it will be very weird going to bed alone for the first time for over a year. He made sure that I promised to check the security locks twice before going to bed and that I knew where he kept his swords and the mag-lite (HEAVY), just in case. I convinced him we didn’t need someone else to stay over, but I do have Nelson’s number, in case something happens. I also have Catie on speed-dile , and her fiance is staying there this weekend and he is a Marine too. First, they all wanted me to actually stay over at Catie and Sarah’s house, but with D here, that wouldn’t work. We are perfectly safe, this is a good neighbourhood, but hubby is just a little bit paranoid.

Catie will come and pick us up in a little while. We are going to their new apartment and order some pizza and watch some Disney movies. Catie is a Disney-freak and has a whole lots of Disney movies.

Okay people, I’m back on track again. I have found a couple that will work. I’ll cut Arabic (It’s NOT Sarah Brigtman’s Harem….), Celtic and Tango. Will probably end up with 4 songs. Yay!

I am definitely going desperate over this whole music deal. I need a song and I need it soon. The music is the most important thing about a skating program, it can either make or break a performance. I skate with my heart right open, feeling the music. So I can’t just chose any little piece. It needs to work and it needs to touch me. My husband says “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get it. Is it really that important? Get a grip of yourself. It’s not a life and death matter.” I’ll just leave it that he’s not the creative artist in the family. He doesn’t get why the music is so important, neither does a lot of people. And besides, the music isn’t just magically going to find its way to my desktop, I need to be actively looking and listening. My only problem right now is that I don’t quite know what I’m looking for. Maybe you, my readers, have any suggestions? So far, I have done (let’s see if I can remember them all); something terrible (it was…. I don’t know the name of it…) The Neverending Story (twice, in a row), Lord of the Dance, Ghostbusters, Phantom of the Opera, Gladiator, The Addams Family, Peter Pan, Celtic Tiger, and Harem. I found them all, with the exception of Gladiator. But now, I am at a loss.

It’s supposed to be a 2 min 40 sek piece, no jumps higher than double toeloop (like I’d do one anyway….. I’d rather do a triple salchow…), no double-double combos, choice between spiral or step sequence (take a guess which one I’d choose…………….), three fairly simple spins (nothing flying), adult, mature, original but still nothing too out there due to traditional judges. It can’t be too fast, or too slow. And it has to hit my heart, bring out my soul. Easy? I wouldn’t think so.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about going to something Celtic again. Unfortunately, it’s extremely overdone, and the two CD’s I’d end up picking from have been played to death. It would be like doing Carmen, Swan Lake, Don Quixote or Romeo & Juliet. I don’t want to go there, but if I can’t find anything better, I will, after much regret. I’d pull it off well, and I know the music by heart. Anyways, what do you think?

I should be in bed now, hubby is, but I’m simply not tired. He is ill, so’s D. I’m pretty okay today, compared to them. I’m thinking of buying the pass to Icenetwork so that I can scope out what people were doing during Adult Nationals and more importantly, what they were skating to. it’s only like $15, and then I can watch everything live this upcoming season. I’ll have to wait for a month though, to get the pass for the 08-09 season.

I need to head to bed. Talk to ya soon. DO tell what you think on the music issue. Thanks.

I just got called a “jerk” by my dear step daughter. A J-E-R-K, a Junior Educated Rich Kid, which is offensive on SO many levels I just can’t begin to describe them all. She didn’t know off course, she thought it was a compliment. Someone in her class had said it, and didn’t quite know what it meant. She got a stern talking to, to explain what it meant, and that it’s very rude on many levels, because of the implications of the analogy. The four words by themselves don’t mean anything bad, but stringed together like that…. I was basically called a substandard person who has had everything done for her, never had to do an honest dayss labour in her life due to having rich parents who can make calls and get her into whatever she wants to do, including pulling strings so that she got in to a school she normally wouldn’t have, had she not had those parents. It’s just wrong on so many levels… I told D never to call someone a “jerk” again.

I joined this thing a little while ago, called CSM, or Childless Step moms. It’s basically a forum for women who are in a relationship with a man with kids from a previous relationship. You discuss stuff, vent, throw your frustrations out there, get advise, or generally just get to talk to other women in a similar situation as you are. It’s a place where you can talk, without being judged, on issues about that hubby of yours and the step children, and whatever you may feel. A popular quote on the site is “With stepchildren, you are finishing somebody else’s artwork. It is never going to look like the picture you would have painted if you had started from scratch.”  You never quite know what to do, and there are always people standing right there, judging you, comparing you. It’s just nice to vent once in a while to people who really understands. It’s not your kid, but you are expected to raise them, especially if you are a woman.

When I have kids of my own, down the lane, we are eating all meals and snacks in the kitchen. I don’t give a damn if Spongebob is on or iCarly, food is reserved for the kitchen! But I can’t go in and change things that have been in place for 9 years, that makes me mean and evil, and what’s the big deal? To me, huge. I’ll be the one doing the vacuuming! The scrubbing of the bloody carpet when we have spilled juice on it. Besides, what’s this with Americans and carpets, huh? They all walk with their shoes inside and have full covering carpets all over the house? How sanitary is that? And then we are not even talking about all the dust that gets trapped in them! Allergies, anyone? And hubby always wonders why I wake up completely stuffed…. It’s ludicrous! When we move, the first thing I’m doing (right after buying a gas mask) is tearing out the carpets.

We think we are coming down with something. We are very tired, heads hurt, D’s been coughing since Friday and cough medicine is not working. Hubby’s taking her to the doctor in the morning, she is convinced she has pneumonia, but we shall see. Apart from the cough, she’s fine. I’m tired, mind and body, my entire body hurts, I am extremely irritable and moody and my head feels like there’s a tiny elf sitting on my shoulder slamming an iron mallet down every few minutes. I’m feeling like a hippo and eating like one too (probably a crappy analogy, but I’m beyond caring at this point).

I’m going to take a nice long shower now and read the book that UPS delivered from Amazon, “Making Shapely Fiction” by Jerome Stern. Then I am going to go to sleep and when I wake up I am going to feel better. End of story.

I hate when he does that. Bursts my bubble. He always does it, very nicely, very correctly and he’s always right too. But it still hurts.

I had found this absolutely wonderful song from the movie Chocolat. It was passionate and pretty, light and airy. I worked on it all day, cutting it to perfection. I only had a minute of music, so I had to find something else to put with it, and I had used a very rare composer, she doesn’t have a lot of things out. But I finally found the soundtrack to the movie The Cider House Rules after hours of searching. An old rival of mine had used the exact same song, years earlier. It took a couple of hours to make it perfect. Then I, very thrilled, called my husband downstairs to hear it. He said it was gorgeous. And then he said that I couldn’t do it.

He said it wrapped up in a lot of fluff of course, he might be harsh but not that harsh. He named all the things I had to do to the music, the kind of skating it needed, the kind of spins, spirals, edges, arms, gracefulness. He said he hadn’t seen it on that level from me. Maybe in a couple of years, after taking some more ballet classes maybe. He was right, you know, but it still hurt. I know I’m not all that, but we all hope, don’t we? We hope to be that girl, the one that everyone remembers after the competition is over. The WOW girl. The one to beat. The one with the beautiful line, a divine deity floating across the ice and touching everyone’s hearts. I know I’m not her. I know I never was, and never will be either. I just don’t have it. But we all wish, don’t we? I thought I’d try, just for once. I’d slip this song into the selection, and everyone would love it and say I should skate to it, overlooking the fact that they knew, deep within, that I wasn’t the right skater for that music. I just…… Wanted to be her.

To make matters worse, I played the other piece for him. “Honey, it’s too fast.” He had a slight look of pity in his eyes. “Maybe you could have done when you left Sweden, when you still had all your doubles and your power and speed. This is not you anymore.”

I’ll have to put away Yann Tiersen again. If I can’t do Chocolat, then I most definitely can NOT do Yann. I’ll have to start over again. I can’t cut the Celtic piece I had planned from Edvin Marton, or National Treasure. They are just as fast as second piece. I’m back on square one. I don’t know who I am as a skater anymore and it hurts. I’ve lost my athletic identity and I feel terrible. Absolutely terrible. I don’t know what to do. I am so good with music, but I don’t know what music works anymore. I don’t know me. And it has always been my pride, the fact that I always picked great music for myself. Always right for age, skill and maturity. And now…. I just don’t know what to do.

I’m sitting locked in the downstairs bathroom. I don’t want to upset our little girl with crying over something as silly as this. I needed some privacy, so here I sit, stretched out (yeah, right) on the floor of our little tiny bathroom, writing this. My wireless Internet is finally working so yay for that!…. I had planned of using this whole week to cut music, but now, no. I just can’t. God, I can’t believe I’m bawling over something like this. I’ve been weeping silently for probably half an hour now. I can’t understand myself today. Let’s just hope it’s the sugar. My head is pounding and I am feeling physically sick.

I’m going to be fine. I always bounce back. Eventually.