The National Championships!

Skater-Me… about 20 years ago

Many of you know the early part of my life.

Long before I was a wife, a stepmother, a pet-Mummy, a veterinarian, a writer, a blogger, a bling-slinger and a wanna-be golfer I was a competitive and then professional figure skater.

What a fun world it was.

And what fun for me this weekend with both the US and Canadian national championships being contested at the same time!

My former coach/mentor, the late Dr.Hellmut May.

Full disclosure on my part: I never made it to the Canadian National Championships. Hell, I never made it to Western Canadians.

But I competed at a national level and I tried my best and that was back in the 6.0 judging system and I was fairly well-known and respected.

And I passed every Gold test I tried and I guest-skated and I traveled twice to Japan with the Beautiful People to perform in professional ice shows.

My first tour in southern Japan… can you spot one of Gracie Gold’s main people in this picture?

And I stay connected through friends I trained & competed with, my former students, former coaches of my own and colleagues and its wonderful when the National Championships roll around!

I am thrilled that Gracie Gold reclaimed her US National Title.

The girl is amazing. She oozes talent, finesse, class and style. She is young and bright and cheery and yet can fight through the fact she singled her opening triple lutz in the short program putting her in 2nd place to skate lights-out in her long program and win the gold.

Firebird, indeed.

Canada’s former national champion, Kaetlyn Osmond (not my photo)

And I’m bummed that the lovely young Kaetlyn Osmond once again is not Canada’s national champion. She is a maritime girl who trains in Alberta under one of my dearest skating friends growing up, Ravi Walia. She has sass and spunk and fabulous technique and is a presence on the ice.

But it wasn’t her year.

She did place 3rd, however…good enough for a trip to Four Continents and the back-up spot on the World’s team.

While I haven’t watched the Canadian programs yet, I am intrigued by the situation in the pairs discipline.

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Duhamel & Radford on their way to another National title and hopefully another World one, too! (not my photo)

Meghan (the vegan) Duhamel and Eric Radford are Canada’s national champs once again. They are both veterans of the sport. Definitely “getting up there.”

Particularly when you consider that he is a giant and she is a midget and he tosses her on incredible throw quads and they can still somehow manage side by side triple lutzes. Their arsenal is amazing.

Part of their secret is the fact they have been together for so long.

Too may pair and ice dance teams break up without fighting through difficult or non-gold-medal times. Longevity yields trust, unison and greatness.

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Ilyushechkina & Moscovitch, bronze medalists for Canada this year! (I LOVE that dress!) (not my picture)

Part of the drama on the Canadian pairs scene involves the 3rd place team of Dylan Moscovitch and Lubov Ilyushechkina.

Dylan and Kristin Moore-Towers were national champs and placed 4th in the World two years running. They were fabulous and had such fun programs and obviously some world level cred.

Following the last Olympic year, though, Kristin called it quits, saying she wanted someone committed to 2 more Olympic cycles. Dylan, himself is no spring chicken and was only up for 1 more cycle. Kristin found a new partner in a high ranking Canuck (whose current partner was too tall) and Dylan went on the hunt. He was considered the sad sack in this case, being older and dumped but there are always 2 sides to every story and more than one reason Kristin moved on.

Regardless, Dylan teamed up with Lubov, who loves Canada but hadn’t competed for Russia since her parter, Nodari dumped her a couple of years prior. Russia released her to represent Canada and damned if they aren’t beating Kristin and her partner now! They are off to the World Championships, even!

My hob-nobbing brunch with a bunch of Olympians from the US and Canada in Salt Lake City, including Paige Lawrence & Rudi Sweigers and Dylan Moscovitch and Kristin Moore-Towers on my right. Special nod to Liam Firus on my left because….

The men’s event provided much less drama in Canada. Patrick Chan is back after 2 years of not-competing. Dude still has his quads and finesse but he’s an even more passionate performer, if you can believe it.

P-Chiddy, mid air at Canadian Nationals this weekend. He’s baaaaaaaack! (not my picture)

With young guns like Javier Fernandez and Yuzuru Hanyu taking charge of the world a lot of people wondered about Chan coming back. Chan, who trains with a lesser known coach (who was the mom of his girlfriend, not sure if that’s the status these days) after dumping one of the top technicians in the US as a coach a few years ago most definitely can keep up on the ice and his maturity may take him back to the top of the World podium yet again.

North Vancouver’s Lium Firus, 2nd in Canada!

I am so proud to see Liam Firus heading back to World’s as Canada’s #2 man. The fact he grew up in North Vancouver (where I lived when I trained there) is pretty special but its also neat that he was part of our SLC brunch crew a couple of years ago.

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Weaver & Poje… beautiful dancers! (not my picture)

No surprise when Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje took the National ice dance title in Canada again. They are just Beautiful. And Beautiful People. His mom is Beautiful. They dance Beautifully, wear Beautiful costumes and make you feel Beautiful watching them. No real drama there (they are a couple if you were wondering).

American ice dance, however was something different.

The Shibutanis are back on top! Its fabulous!

The once World bronze-medalists had been overshadowed by teammates Chock & Bates but they crushed it yesterday with their jaw-droppingly incredible Coldplay free dance. I had tears! I replayed it! I love it!

Maia and Alex Shibutani are siblings, which can get weird in the often love-inspired world of ice dance.

My brother & I with our own ice dance finesse. Our red & black duds were perfect for the Fiesta Tango and, hey, we did actually win the bronze medal at the BC championships at the pre-novice level!

I love how the Shibs skate and how true they are to themselves. They have grown up in front of the figure skating world’s eyes and they looked so mature last night.

I’m not a huge Chock & Bates fan, though. She is way too over-dramatic (even for ice dance! Reminds me of Bestemianova in the 80s!) and he bugs me because he dumped Emily Samuelson after she waited a year for his broken ankle to heal. Break-ups and drama. It never seems to end in figure skating.

Getting ready before a guest-skating appearance somewhere in the 90’s.

As for the US pairs teams, it was exciting to see the young Florida team nail everything in their program to take their first national title. They were fearless, landing a huge throw triple-flip near the end of the program and I see big things for Tarah Kayne and Daniel O’Shea.

They beat the former champs, Scimeca and Knierem, who are real-life couple. Alexa needs to eat, though. She looks way thinner this year and while it may be why they can do that huge quadruple split-twist (skate backwards, reach back and tap your toepick between his legs, he throws you up in the air, you split your legs then rotate horizontally and spin 4 times in the air and he catches you, preferably with both hands and not his head or chest and you smile all pretty) it still isn’t right.

Figure skating hasn’t come very far in the skinny-girl department.

Going through puberty in spandex doesn’t help.

My first ice show in Japan!

I do think that Gracie, Polina Edmunds, Kaetlyn, Ashley Wagner and Meghan all have fabulous looks, though, and maybe they will be role models for younger girls who want to be skaters.

Like Katarina Witt and Midori Ito were for me.

The American men are competing today so I have nothing on that. I have my thoughts, though… Max Aaron has finally listened to his critics and worked on his artistry. I wish he would work on a new look as far as his skinny pants go but lets work on one thing at a time. Jason Brown isn’t in the mix due to injury. He brings an exuberant breath of fresh air to the scene but he will need a quad to remain competitive with the global boys. I’m not a huge fan of Adam Rippon’s hair style but he is a beautiful skater and I want him to live up to his potential.

Synchro has come a long way since the Grand Forks Figure Skating Club’s precision team competed in the 80’s. (Me, front row, 2nd from the right)

The weekend of sparkle and drama and glitter and grit and cameras and triple axels and pair combination spins and Shibutani brilliance and seeing friends on TV was a lovely distraction from the fact we started little Loki on phenobarbital for her increasingly frequent and severe seizure activity.

Basically, she’s stoned.

And still blind.

Loki & I this summer in Bismarck

The buzz will disappear over the next week but there is just something hilariously endearing about her licking Gampy’s foot intensely, slowly, lovingly for over 15 minutes and jonesen’ for the piece of sausage she knew was on my plate.

And sometime while I was writing this she took a shit in the hallway by the kitchen.

That part wasn’t so much hilarious as accepted.

…

I wish nothing but the best of luck to the Canadian and American teams heading to Boston in March for the World Championships! Stay tuned for more info, musings, results and glitz! (Is it any wonder I sling bling now?)

Skating has always been a huge part of my life!

The cast of my first ice show in Japan.

The on-ice characters of the very first Raise The Roof in North Dakota!

The First Sunrise of 1993

Happy New Year and welcome, 2016!

While 2015 was marvelous for so many reasons I am fine to shut the door behind it.

Not that the day of the week or the number on the calendar changes much.

View of the front yard.

Its still winter.

We’ve still got over 2 feet of snow on the ground.

The snowmobilers are racing around the meadows and the yurt-ski people are filling up the parking area at the end of one of our nicely plowed driveways and Alistair is still going back & forth to Bismarck and Loki has had a few more seizures.

Loki. Right now. Not seizing!

They aren’t very long- 10 seconds at the most.

I’m starting to notice a routine she has when they occur and maybe she seeks us out when she senses one coming on because I have been close by for the last 3.

She sits down or stands very still and then she starts bringing up a frothy bile-like foam (I’m not trying to gross you out. Its just what happens). Her medically-inclined Gampy and Step-Gammy think the pre-seizure phase is somehow making her nauseas.

Then the trembling starts.

Loki napping under the covers. Not having a seizure.

Twice now we have held onto her, stabilizing her with our own bodies and she doesn’t fall over and hasn’t actually gone into the full-blown seizure. Other times she goes down (gently if we are around to assist… thankfully she’s only 15 lbs) and she seizes.

Then she piddles.

Then she wakes up.

And after a little while of being held, talked to and what looks like a bit of general fuzziness she is back to business- eating, drinking, barking at closed doors, barking at the other side of the closed door, and prancing through the house like a little pin ball, gently bonking against a door here or a wall there.

Or a chiddy pat.

Boomer & Cooper back in May. When Boom was only 19.

Like Boomer.

Who, at 20 years old is pretty set in her ways.

I will say, she is still agile enough to make the effort to get out of Loki’s way now and she can still surprise the snot out of me with a rapid whack from her claws if I’m working on a hair matt.

BoomBoom gets twice a day methimazole for her over active thyroid. We’ve been at this for 2 years now. I didn’t think we’d last 2 months when we started.

But we did so we keep doing what we’re doing and another year has come and gone.

Beautiful New Year in our back yard in Montana!

I spent New Year’s alone (well, void of human company) which isn’t all that bad. I made it to midnight and reached over to pet the dogs, wishing them a happy New Year!

I got a couple of tail thumps from UB but that was about it.

Are you writing about me, Mummy?

Its not the first New Year’s I’ve ever spent alone.

The first one was saying goodbye to 1992 as 1993 came along.

I was living in Tokyo (Chiba, really), Japan and working as an English teacher for American Language Schools.

Me with some of my students… and Rhonda. Who will have her own story someday.

I was overweight, pale, engaged to the wrong man back in Canada, living within 2 tiny rooms in a cement block that was partly inhabited by the Yakuza, drinking too much Kahlua and cream at night, without internet, writing lots of letters, living for my cassette tape player and I had no clear idea of what I wanted out of life.

Thankfully a cousin who lived there introduced me to one of her students, Mr.Katsumata, who took pity on this poor young Geigin who was alone for the holidays.

He began with what must have been an incredibly expensive supper on Christmas day- a day that isn’t celebrated in Japan like it is in more Christian-based countries.

Mr. Katsumata outside of Omote-Sando Dori in Tokyo.

I look like a white giant here but I assure you I have never been tall.

Mr.Katsumata also wanted to share a traditional Japanese New Year’s with me, which I have forever remembered and appreciated.

Boarding the train at 2am. We had seats in the 2nd row!

We took the first train of 1993 to the coastal city of Endo-Shima to watch the first sunrise of the year.

Its a pretty big deal in the Land of the Rising Sun.

It is tradition (and good luck!) to visit many temples and snack amongst the crowds before, during and after sunrise.

Visiting one of many temples sometime around 5am in Endo-Shima, Japan.

We made sure to get as close to the shore as we could and among hundreds of Japanese we watched the sun rise above the horizon on the first morning of 1993.

There it is! The first sunrise!

It was beautiful to see and be a part of. Everyone cheered and hugged and I felt pretty special looking out over the waters that morning many mornings ago.

We kept going around to temples and Mr.Katsumata taught me about various statues and beliefs and we ate too much food and drank beer or tea and before long I was back in my little rectangle of a house as one very tired Geigin.

Hundreds of people visiting all of the temples after the sunrise.

I learned a lot that special day and it still holds deep meaning for me. I wasn’t traveling to Japan as a tourist and I wasn’t there with a group of North American figure skaters sharing the experience.

I was living there, trying to figure my way around a non-touristy community, immersed in a culture very different from my own as an obvious wide-eyed, pale-skinned, chubby outsider and yet this one man invited me to share his customs and traditions in a spiritual setting with me.

It was important that he taught me these things and shared them with me and it was equally important for me to experience a mere fraction of what being Japanese was like.

More temples on Jan.1st… excuse the crabby look on my face! I remember feeling really tired right about then but I got my game face back later on.

I’ve never seen the first sunrise on the first day of any new year ever since. I don’t think it would be quite the same.

There is much more to my adventures in Japan but I am smiling and feeling nostalgic and I need to work on our snow-shoe trail with UB and Cleopatra now.

I will leave you with the 3 ferrets and I with our latest Sing-Song saddle video we cooked up the other night.

Welcome, 2016. I still don’t know exactly what path I am on but I am enjoying the trail.

Working on the snow shoe trail this afternoon!

Come on, Mummy!

21 Years Later…

Right around this time of year, 21 years ago, I met Alistair.

Some promo pics taken after the show, the night Alistair was in the stands watching

We were set up by mutual friends and we both had big things coming up in our lives that made it kind of silly to start a relationship.

I had contracted to return to Japan for 2 more ice shows starting a month after we met and he was moving to the United States.

We were going nowhere as a couple.

Oh, Patti…. if you only knew! (Maybe you did) 🙂

But this wonderful, fun, special friend of mine set us up.

She also helped bring me in to guest skate that night in Creston for their skating club’s annual ice show.

I had babysat Patti’s kids when they lived down the road from us in Grand Forks and we had kept in touch over the years.

That year, 1994, I was living in Nelson. I was coaching both there and in Grand Forks, which was 90 minutes over a mountain pass away.

One of my Nelson students, Jessica. I don’t think she’ll kill me for posting this.

I have always loved coaching. I loved helping kids achieve their goals and watching them improve and seeing the joy in their eyes when they, too, knew they had improved.

Or passed tests.

Or won medals.

One of my Grand Forks skaters, Tyler. I’m actually more concerned that he has the connections to kill me for posting this but he is a well-respected coach now, too, so hopefully its all good.

That was a strange year for me, spending so much time on the road in ‘Duff’, my Mercury Topaz.

I had returned from a year of teaching English in Japan with several extra pounds and no fiancée. I was a half-assed vegetarian who kind of stopped drinking for awhile.

I blamed meat and alcohol for my weight gain but, really, it was just me learning how to be an adult in a body that wasn’t training umpteen hours in a day. And, really, you can’t have Kahlua and cream every night and not pay for it.

One of my Nelson students, Laura. Always a pretty smile on her face and she always got the jokes.

I came back to Canada without any of the goals I’d had before I went to Japan. I’d broken up with my fiancée by phone (I sympathized with Rory McIlroy last year when he did the same… hey, sometimes its the only way, alright?) and returned without any expectation of meeting anyone.

Which is why I threw myself into my work.

Until I met this guy.

Schwing!

He was in the audience and our mutual friends took us out for drinks afterwards and I was leaving and he was moving and we weren’t going anywhere.

But after our first meeting he drove from Creston to Nelson to watch my big ice show there, Starstruck.

Me and my girls from our opening number in Startstruck, Hot Hot Hot!

The biggest show I’ve ever choreographed and produced, this was a big deal.

It was also a bit of a family affair.

Little sis, ready for her modeling gig in the show

My sister came in as a guest skater for the show and also did a little modeling in one of the routines.

Svetlana working on my sister’s ‘do for the show

My cousin, Svetlana, a stylist, donated her time and did the girls’ hair for us all.

Me and a very young Robyn in Nelson

Even my little cousins, Robyn and Pamela were there from Victoria and came to watch the show with their folks. (Robyn is now a major model in NYC…. I can only hope the sequins, spandex and makeup from 1994 inspired her!)

And there was Alistair… happily joining in the celebrations and helping me host my champagne breakfast and video review the following morning.

Some of my Grand Forks skaters at their ice show that same spring!

And then he was in Grand Forks watching me guest skate again and cheer on my students in their annual ice show a couple of weeks later.

That’s the same weekend I met his kids.

Which was a weird deal for a lot of 21 year-olds but it didn’t seem weird to me at all.

They were just his kids.

And they were pretty cute, and old enough to eat and pee on their own, which is obviously a bonus.

And they met me in sequins and spandex and fishnets and I tell you, there is something magical about that when you’re a little kid!

Our hotel room in Spokane with my going-away buddy, Seemore

And then he took me to the airport in Spokane and sent me on my way to Japan to be Sailor Moon and a glitzy showgirl all over again.

My bedmates in our little house in Japan

Without the Internet back then we wrote letters and faxes and fell deeper in love… old school style.

And when I came home 2 months later I stayed with him in his beautiful log home in Creston with his sheep, Golden Retriever, ducks, geese and horses.

And I made some changes to myself.

Getting a grip on who I was with a big old smile (and horribly high-waisted pants! Ick!)

And Alistair embraced my quirks and my humor and even my family.

Little sis and her friend and I before a ride… said Friend fell off her horse twice that day. I didn’t know that was possible, to be honest.

And we moved to the states and his kids spent the summers with us and we became our own little family and we never cared much about our age difference and I went back to school and he was a doctor and all the while he kept on supporting my skating and coaching needs.

We didn’t have an indoor ice rink in Watford City, ND, but I had brave friends from Nelson and Grand Forks who would help with that.

And hard working, incredible friends in Watford City (Tim & Wendy) who amazingly agreed to help make this fundraiser happen.

The first Raise The Roof ice show with Tim & Wendy (my ND support group and source of sanity), Little sis, Jen, Leslie, Laura, Shantalla and Alistair

We put Raise The Roof together, revamping that Hot Hot Hot opening number on the outdoor rink and indoors in Williston. Each of us performed solo routines as well.

Laura, so impressed with the outdoor rink… but still smiling!

It was cold but it was pretty awesome at the same time. People sat in their cars with their headlights on, adding to the lights of the outdoor rink for the show there.

The crack that extended across the width of the rink from the cold only became a problem when Jen got her toe pick caught.

So much silliness and laughter in this pic, along with so much respect for the skaters & hockey players who joined my show and performed because I asked them to.

The Watford City hockey boys were part of the show, too, and I am amazed that they participated and maybe had fun. (Pictures are from the indoor rink in Williston, where we spent the next 30 minutes signing autographs).

The boys and I… hard to believe they actually wanted a part of this after what I would put them through in Power Skating

And all along, Alistair has supported this.

These dreams, these zany visions and notions I have. We did a Raise The Roof the following year but none of the Nelson girls made it. My sister and a castmate from Ice Capades joined us, though, so there was some continuity.

And its crazy fun that I’m Facebook Friends with so many of the skaters in this blog (and their parents!)

What began as a blog about step-parenting turned into a stroll down Nostalgia Lane and back to the frozen world of figure skating.

Looking like this, you’d think I would have driven a Subaru back then (no, that’s not my car in the background…. Mercury Topaz, remember?)

It turned into a review of who I was in 1994… a young woman who had been on her own and traveled and lived and done the ice shows and been engaged and coached in two cities and drove too many miles and experimented with a variety of styles and looks and didn’t have any animal companions and finally went back to being a carnivore who enjoys her red wine.

Becoming Me, with Babe and Shadow along to help.

And a gorgeous boyfriend with 2 cute kids and nobody to give advice on what to do because none of my friends were going through that back then.

Sinead O’Conner sang, “How could I possibly know what I want when I was only twenty one”….

I didn’t necessarily know exactly what I wanted but I knew I was enjoying what I had.

Immensely.

With no more Kahlua and creams….

My show girls… before boarding the train for 2 days to get back to Spokane. Thanks, Shantalla, Diana, Laura and Jen! I think of you guys often and its always with a smile. xo

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