Napkin Weights for Outdoor Dining

 Mom's new house (1 1/2 years) is incredibly windy. It's 5 miles from windsurfing and 6 miles from a wind farm. 6 seems like a lot of miles away- there could be a wind farm at her house if it wasn't already houses. The wind is so unbelievable. It knocks over things you would never think were light enough, like an empty steel thermos. Whenever there is an especially shockingly windy day I look up the wind speed and numerically the wind is not that high. I'm not sure if the weather station is more sheltered than her house, or what. 

Over the two summers she has lived there, we have developed some strategies. One is- the wind is highest once in the morning and once in the afternoon, the onshore and then offshore winds from the pacific to the delta and back. So, we can plan outdoor dining during the lower wind in the late morning and the late evening. Another is to weight things strategically: light thing in the center of the table so we have time to respond if it starts lifting, weighted heavier than you think you'd need such as by a stack of stoneware plates instead of one plate. 

We think nice, decorative, outdoor friendly weights are about the only thing she could need from my ceramic studio since she loves ceramics and has every ceramic. I doubt that anything sized like a traditional napkin weight will be heavy enough but it is worth a try. They could also be just right for the less windy times of day, or perhaps if you fold a paper napkin before weighting it so there is less sail surface area. 

I based the top design on a set of raku coasters, metallic blue to pink, that she has and are near and dear to her. Mine won't be raku at this time because I am still working through oxidation firing possibilities, and besides, raku would be lighter weight and so less suitable for purpose, I'm pretty sure. So they are kind of intuitive, earthy, symbolic. I relegated the design I want to the underside because these are not a gift for me. I designed the hearts to fit together like a puzzle by making a template with straight sides and using the template to slice four hearts out of a slab of clay with a needle tool. Once those dried for a few days I carved the intuitive patterns, and once those dried overnight I was able to handle them to lay out the design of the waterways of the region where these will be used (including the wind farm and the windsurfing lake). I traced it onto typewriter paper (similar to onionskin paper) straight from my computer screen using a broad felt tip so the screen wouldn't be affected, then laid this paper on the clay hearts and impressed the design with my new ballpoint stylus tool. Removed the template, checked the design agains the map, removed the big areas of water with carving tools and refined the edges of the water plus the small waterways with the stylus. I would love to have thick glaze that breaks over the intuitive designs, maybe use the same 3 or 4 glazes on all 4 weights but layered in a different order. 

Exceeding his grasp

A chihuahua is the perfect intersection of short stature and minimal jumping ability to allow you to keep whatever you want on your counters. Nothing stops me from keeping his food out except that I don't want to see it. So I have to keep it on top of the fridge which luckily is out of line of sight for me. Combine that with how easy it is to function in the morning while I heat up water to rehydrate my instant coffee and his freeze dried chicken, I drop his food from the top of the fridge about once a week. So, what if it could be beautiful, like him? Then it could go on the counter, unlike him. 

This (above) is the first reach toward essentially a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of my dog, to hold his food. He is a little bit smaller than a cookie jar (maybe. 12" tall standing and 15" around), as well as quite a bit smaller than his bag of food. So far I still have to learn how to throw shapes that big, and shapes that go together. The skills are as far away as the counter top is to him. But, he is a very similar color to the clay I am using in class. So, it's all coming together. 

The vet explained that his rolls are just his skin, not fat. They are so cute. Sometimes a shape like that forms while trying to pull clay upward into the sides of a pot. So it seems pretty accessible to make them. 

This is my reference photo for the top of his head from the front. Verrrrry easy to form. Doesn't he look like a cartoon in that photo? To make the jar playful it would make sense to exaggerate his features but nature has already done it. 

He's actually a pretty poor live model. He bats at your hands to show that he wants them for petting him,  and he goes under the blanket. Which he only knows how to do by himself if no one is there to do it for him. 

Frequently people joke that he is my child. Is that who you all are making life size ceramic models of, in which to keep their food? Oh. 

Xena's Wheel Thrown + Handbuilt Serving Bowl

 

The serving bowl was given and graced ("graced") our Labor Day table. As planned, it coordinates with Mom's Fiesta ware. She also said it is one of her favorite shades of blue, even more so than her lighter and deeper Fiesta ware. <3 The glaze is called Spotted Purple.

The Swedish horses are special to us- our Swedish family was from the same area as the carved horses. I hoped the glaze might accent them even though the stamp (speedball speedy carve) was designed for paper and not for clay, which meant they are so shallow. 

This exact glaze didn't do that. It filled them in and smoothed them out. But the horses are still nice- a little secret- and it's interesting to see how the studio's glazes differ. 

As promised by our instructors, the clay remembered being wonky and went back to it in the final firing. One said you are not even supposed to let the piece flex when you take it off of the bat. Mom loves dishes and has every dish so to find something wheel thrown she even kind of needed, I had to make something beyond my Intro to Wheel skills. In class we keep making mug after mug, essentially by accident after setting out to make something else. Maybe because mugs are the size and shape of our cupped hands. But Mom has a shelf full of her favorite size and shape mugs plus a display shelf of her mom's favorite (which are small because you used to sit down and drink coffee as an activity, and just keep pouring cups from the... carafe). So it had to be this. 

Wheel Throwing: Serving bowl attempt

 

My mom loves dishes and has every dish. She has her mom's Noritake and her own Fiesta. Given that, I asked her if she wanted anything now that I am learning wheel throwing, and she said: serving bowls. It's true, we use a mixing bowl to serve from at her house. It turns out (triple pun) to be a shockingly hard request.

The design: medium height to fill in the need between serving plates and mixing bowl or crock pot crock. Glaze that will coordinate with the Fiesta ware- so, glossy and uniform. I will include a picture of some of her tableware broken up for mosaic, but she also has two shades of green and a second shade of blue not pictured. So I think this is pretty flexible- blue, purple, black, or white would all work. (Actually it is occurring to me that clear glaze would be a nice contrast with the Fiesta). Because it is a gift I am not going to follow my sea urchin accretion instinct but will only stamp a shallow debossed design on the bottom. And that means the bottom has to be flat before the trimming stage, because that stage will be too hard for the stamps I have already made.

The attempt:

Clay shrinks when fired, we were told our clay shrinks about 13%, so I was aiming to throw a bowl bigger than 12" across.

We learned to wheel throw by centering the clay into a puck, which is conveniently the diameter of the inside of my cupped hand. The base of a serving bowl is bigger than that. I found online a way to start with the puck and stretch it but the technique I learned for flattening the bottom, dragging one fingertip slowly across it, couldn't level such a big expanse. Then also the sides I was making slumped all the way down to the surface, the MDF bat. I continued turning it just in case I could learn more by continuing, but of course there was no salvaging the piece. For my purposes, the bottom was too thin and the piano wire clay cutter sliced through it.

This really seems like a job for handbuilding... roll out a piece of clay, line a pot with saran wrap, drape the clay and press it into place. Leave it for some time until it dries enough to flip out of the pot and out of the saran wrap. The two things that stop me are: I don't have a pot with the perfect size and shape, and, I am learning wheel throwing. I am accepting the process. I am welcoming the challenge. 

This really looks so much closer to the intention than it was in person. But looking now at this photo it looks closer than I remember when I was making it. And look at that beautiful rim. 

Notes for me for next time: started with 3 pounds of clay, could try 3 1/2. Was hard to manhandle so probably not ready for 4. Maybe find a rib with a straight side for the bottom. Okay for walls to be thick to accommodate trimming texture for grip. 

Wheel Throwing Week 3

 Unfair that tonight I have to trim my two weeks ago bad pots

 instead of making today good pots.

I spent any available taking-good-photos-in-good-light time gouging and ungouging my pots so will have to make do without visuals: 

My first two weeks of wheel, my items are not the same center all the way up. So I placed them today, upside down with the rim centered, checked the center halfway up the pot by placing a tool in its way and noting if it scored in only one place. Those parts were centered: the rim, and halfway up. However, the bottom of the pot which I had to actually remove clay from to make a little foot for the piece to rest on, the bulls eye center of the piece was off to one side like a fried egg. 

I planned to be fastidious about only making things that I have a real need for. I just moved into my completely own apartment for the first time. When I stayed here the first night before I moved anything, I got some ready made salads at the grocery store thinking I would definitely have some kind of fork or spoon in my bag or in the car. I had one chopstick. I had to eat my salad by hand, with the one kitchen towel serving as placemat and napkin. Now that I have all my stuff, there is nothing I need like I needed a second chopstick that night. But there are things that were communal at my old house, that I now do not have. 

In particular, a big bowl for popcorn. From our old house I took our chipped communal garlic grating plate, so it would please me to make at least a second one for my brother now that we are not sharing, and maybe one to replace the chipped one. Unclear why I have zero mugs, I suppose they might have moved out with someone else. I have been happily drinking every beverage from the same pint glass. This is working perfectly except when I have to take medicine when the glass is in the dishwasher and had to put water into an empty coke can. This has happened twice in the six weeks I have been here. And if I have a guest they have to drink out of their own water bottle. So it would be nice to have two coordinating hand thrown mugs. I'm also imagining a to go cup. So far, I only found two bowls to pack, one cereal and one soup. The soup bowl can fit a packet of ramen (while it is still square) but the cereal bowl can't. So if I had a guest, I would have to cook my ramen brick one side at a time. Altogether a rather long list. 

1 Popcorn bowl (blue)

1 garlic grater (blue) 

2, 15 oz mugs (blue)

1 to go cup (purple)

2 ramen bowls (white) 

The plan is so clear. And yet I have thrown:

 1 garlic grater, 

1 flower pot, 

1 ramen bowl (kind of small), and

1 ?Can of soup cozy?

 I can't believe last week the clay was controlling my body. The instructor explained that I shape the clay, that I brace my arm into my leg and put my weight into it. It felt like I was doing these things, but the wobble in the clay was a cam pushing my arm into my leg, every rotation. She would observe, tell me again to brace my arm, I would try again, the clay pushing me as it developed more and more wobble. This week, I don't know why, I was resolved to stay in one place. I made myself into one unit, feet braced to the floor, straight back leaning to bear down on the clay collecting bucket with my forearms, pressing on the clay hard with my linked hands and elbows stabilized at my legs. Since our instructor isn't doing all this I expect I will be able to back off a lot of this as I get more skilled. But it just seemed obvious this week that the clay couldn't overrule me and as I was looking down at it spinning compliantly where I wanted, I couldn't believe how we were both behaving last week, my first time at the wheel. 

So glad to have found this studio, I will go there for a long time. Ideally the only things I fire will be things I need. I most need a popcorn bowl. The one I have been using is staying with my old housemate. I have been picky, looking to thrift a blue glass bowl. 

Christmas Meatballs

We boxed up the cookbook that has the traditional meatball recipe and haven't unpacked it. We looked online and put together four or five recipes with what we remembered of the traditional one. It has really hardly come out this good half the years, and of course the hybrid recipe exists nowhere, so here it is: 

Meatballs and sauce: 

2lbs 80/20 ground beef

48oz canned diced tomatoes

2 medium yellow onions

6oz tomato paste

1/2c milk made of half and half and water

1/2 c breadcrumbs

2oz parmesan 

1 egg

5 garlic cloves

1 tbsp rosemary

scant tablespoon basil and oregano

tsp red pepper flakes

Pasta:

Fusilli or spaghetti 

Chop onions somewhat finely. Hydrate breadcrumbs with milk (made of half and half and water). Combine onions, breadcrumb mixture, grated parmesan, and egg, then incorporate beef. Add seasonings. Form mixture into small handfuls (in between golf ball and tennis ball size) and place one layer in bottom of crockpot. Alternate layers of canned diced tomato with meatballs. Add tomato paste and garlic as you go. Set crockpot on "low" for 6 hours. Boil pasta to al dente. 

this is the bread crumbs to get. 

this is the noodles to get. We usually do spaghetti but this was better. 

These are the spices. Rosemary is kind of the star. 

Also, the tomatoes did not really cook down into a sauce, there was a ton of clearish liquid, but it did taste good. So one idea is to somehow know how to make a tomato sauce thick for next year. It is possible that we usually drain the tomatoes? 

Fresh Calendar

Well, you know how it is. I put all these images into Shutterfly, and they let you add a photo in every day of the year plus those empty boxes at the start and end of the month, plus add your own text. I spent an enjoyable few hours (I might check my computer history for how long this actually was) basically looking at my dog and was so enamoured that I would have liked to buy the calendar. It was not discounting very much. I think Christmas is the only time that Shutterfly is at capacity and doesn't have to give good deals. One calendar chock full of my dog was a little more than $40 altogether. This is comparable to the upper range price of the planners I would have already bought if their spiral hole spacing was correct, so very reasonable, but high enough that I would be willing to wait past January 1st to see if it would come down. 

While I was waiting I made a second calendar. This was making my Shutterfly cart show a price of $70+ but also a banner saying that I needed $16 more dollars to reach their free shipping threshold of $79. That is close to my whole planner budget for the year so there is no way I would spend it, even though they had a picture of my dog on his gotcha day. 

The planner budget is not really about money, but more of a limit on how much energy I am putting into procuring. I felt that leaving this open ended up until and past New Year's Eve was going to take too much mental energy. I started looking for when they went on sale the last couple years so I could set a reminder and stop thinking about it. Instead, I found that you can buy them on Groupon for the price of a regular drugstore calendar. (And I found that these really don't have a baseline price. Sometimes they are free with shipping. The lowest price besides free was $8.) This was not difficult but a little legwork with declining "offers" and entering info and going from site to site. So I paid $25 to groupon and $13 to shutterfly. This meant I spent almost the amount of the original price tag but for three calendars. 

They (Shutterfly specifically, but also online shops) make it so confusing. I had to ask myself what it was worth to me and stick to it. 

I also was inconsistent at using my wall calendar this year even when I really needed to, so I am hoping one that is so sweet will be helpful. My current job has been different locations and hours every day, and I am in a weekly filofax whereas I need monthly to keep everything in mind, so I had to draw a little chart of days and dates in my jotter so I'd have it. Actually I guess I still will but can transfer the info to a more permanent form when I get home each day. 

Who wouldn't look forward to California Statehood if they got to see 1 old chihuahua. 

 

Veg tan leather bag

Research 

Seaglass Green Wall Hanging

This little cotton rug from Dharma Trading  Company is brightening up our living room. Well, it’s little for a rug, not little to manipulate and boil. The initial shibori was a little more of a backdrop than a feature. 

I bundled it up with jute. I just used some rules of thumb for a pleasing design. 

Non symmetrical- automatically has more movement and interest. 

Pick up the same color in multiple parts of the piece- this might be the most used transferrable skill I learned from painting classes. This lets you do a LOT and still have a cohesive viewing experience. 

Gradient- I let the dye strike and boil for a little while on the topologically lowest parts of the bundled rug before using my laundry stick to push more of the piece in. I think this piece could use a little more of the lightest most exhausted dye bath but of course you can’t really tell through the steam. This gives depth and interest. 

Resist: keeping some parts of the fabric reserved is why it is visually interesting enough to be a hanging. I also enjoy the evidence of handwork. 

IKEA sheepskin dyed blue

I’ve been wanting to dye these little rugs for ages, but, I think natural colors and especially white are the perfect color for a sheepskin. A dilemma which was solved when I was using the rug as a trivet for another dye bath and some navy leaked onto it. Now, I stead of a gorgeous cream I had cream and blotchy navy to work with. Perfect. I mixed up true turquoise acid dye in the dye pot, took it off heat, and put the sheepskin in hair side down and gathered. I saw some gorgeous patterning as the wool wicked up the dye but, as I let it rest it became more uniform.

 Oh, well, it still got it out of my system and the piece kept its glossy glow. 

Bear does like sleeping on it but not at a time of day with good light. I had to coax him into this photo and now he is recuperating from doing one task by sleeping tucked under one of my shins. 

Sharing the Ice

Tuesday night intermediate adult learn to skate has a half NHL rink to ourselves. I think we were doing backwards crossovers around the perimeter for 20 minutes. We didn’t get our whole free time, which our instructor tells us she “doesn’t call playtime” for adults, I know that. I’m not sure how you normally explain crossovers but if you want to turn left you lean left on your left foot and then put your right foot on the left side of your left foot, next weight on the right foot, and then pick up the left to uncross back to the starting position. And it is easier said than done. 

Anyway, I have backwards crossovers normally after I have warmed up. Today I did zero. First the ice felt sticky and then staying out of everyone’s way took most of my focus. You would think that everyone careening around in a circle would really lend itself to some psychosomatic centripetal force. I am definitely not good enough at backward crossovers to purposely vary my speed and direction so as to overtake other skaters. Practicing on my own I like to do maybe one pump, one glide, two crossovers, then glide or stumble. So I go through a cycle of different speeds that wouldn’t have been reasonable to subject my classmates to. 

Tonight I just did backward pumps, sometimes bringing the working foot to my ankle as a baby step. 

Then we spread out in 4 rows of four to practice our edges. Edges is, if you lean your weight toward your inseam, your path along the ice curves toward yourself, whereas if you lean out, the path you travel curves away from the midline of your body. Which is crazy! 

We had a different spacing problem with edges than with crossovers. In theory I was supposed to describe a perfect semicircle, pause, and describe another. In practice I had a bunch of space to my sides so I could make the arc of my circle really exaggerated and then bring it in when I got close to the shared space of the line. But then I still had to do my second semicircle with my lane mate even closer and skating toward me. So I solved this by doing the smallest little lobe. 

I don’t have full control of the tracing my line makes down to the millimeter, but I can hold all my forward edges. I have perhaps never felt a backwards edge. During Not Playtime I was trying to hold either backward outside edge for any length of time. Once it turned out a semicircle was out of reach I tried just describing any curve. I told myself very girly that it is okay to fall, and I leaned further that I had before. But my fall started too slowly and I stabbed my toe pick in the ground automatically to stop it and I tweaked my knee. Oh. I didn’t know I would do that. Typically when I fall I find out afterward. 

Overall I am getting a lot out of this class. It was amazing to break a real sweat on the ice after passively sweating all day. And all the time to know that outside, the heat was breaking. 

Urban foraging rosemary

Grabbed some rosemary on my way out of the ice rink. This grows so well in our area but I haven’t seen any around recently. This was new growth that peaked up past where the plant was hedge trimmed so I know it is fresh and a little unwanted. 

It was resinous so the car smelled crazy and I’ll need to rinse the sprigs in vinegar water before drying them. 

That’s the thing about the grocery store spice aisle, it has almost no smell. Very antiseptic. 

Nopales take 2

I haven’t been eating our paddle cactus because it’s not a main food for me, but I have been propagating a paddle that fell off and watching the fruits ripen. Our neighbor put out hundreds of pounds of cactus so I thought it was a good time to give it a try. Processing it went okay. Locally we have spineless cactus but once you start touching it you can feel the spines. 

Propagating this little fellow 

Our lovely, healthy specimen plant isn’t overgrown or terribly crowded so there is no urgent need to harvest paddles. 

My first attempt at incorporating the nopales. Homemade tortillas with refried beans, cheese, and nopales. The nopales were slimy and masked the rest of the flavors. I still had around 14 ounces of cactus left over after this recipe. 

For my second attempt I reheated the already cooked cactus by sautéing it in oil with too much spices to compensate for the flavor subduing property of the cactus. Onion, garlic, and cayenne. It was pretty good. 

Learn to Skate

Ice skating was different today. 

I was able to tell what was happening. Up til now I have been really only able to repeat something on the same side in the same direction because flipping everything mentally for every repetition is harder than just resetting to skate it the same way. We were just doing an inside edge half circle with switching our arms at the top of the half circle. But I was able to start them facing toward or away from the clock and standing on either foot. This sounds so reasonable but to date if I so much as switch my arms it forces out any knowledge of what else I am doing. 

Class was also a bit different format. They had us drill this for 20 minutes and I sort of had to stop skating eventually because I had to stop using my burning knees and I don’t know any skating that doesn’t use the knees. However after standing around a bit I realized I could still stroke around forward casually. 

My crossovers were also different today. They make us skate forward crossovers on half the ice sheet for several minutes in each side. Previously I have had kind of erratic crossovers where I would be falling if I didn’t keep taking steps and get a little speed going. Today every once in a while I would stagger around but I could also stand and glide with feet parallel, my left foot on the right and my right foot on the left, and then uncross them. So for much of the time I had a good deal of control of my carriage and then, who knows why I’d falter, avoiding a skater or a weird patch of ice or experiementing with a little tweak. 

Spinning Seacell

This little skein is pure cellulose fiber. I’m spinning as much seacell as I can stand before taking a little break and spinning bamboo for a few yards to calm down. If you draft the sea cell fibers 2 cm it comes apart. At the same time it is so luminously beautiful. 

Hypertufa wreath

Succulents were living for years in this wreath. They were so stunted and dried up you couldn’t see them, but they were alive. I’m thinking I can get a healthier living wreath if I give rainwater someplace to kind of stick before it dries out. 

So, I built sort of a flower pot around my succulent wreath using cement. 

When you read about hypertufa they say just to leave it out in the rain to leach. Well, the rains will be here in four months. So I have this under the spigot to kind of get a little wet each day. 

Foraged Bay Leaves

I have never used a bay leaf in my life. So while I am pretty plant-aware I didn’t have any bay trees on my mental map. I drove around looking for one which didn’t work at all since the first tree I stopped to check was eucalyptus and the second was perhaps olive. Plus I set out close to sunset for temperature reasons and the trees turned into shadowy masses real quick.

I honestly tried to visualize my different regular hikes and see if there was a bay tree. There was not. So I went to one of our less usual spots, a walk which I had not memorized, up at Merritt College. I didn’t see a thing until I was nearly under a bay tree. 

Bear was a big help. 

Urban foraging

Today’s survival food- dandelion. 

Our garden has half the footprint of our house and has to be used for grilling, storage, a dog run, shade, and planting. So I can’t have everything my own way and grow whatever I want wherever I want. I have identified the produce I buy the most- tomatoes- and the produce that is most frustrating to buy and store- lettuce. I am focusing my growing efforts on these. 

I’m toying with the idea of only eating homegrown lettuce but at the same time as my lettuces are one quarter inch big, I still have to have salad. I bought a bag of baby spinach because it keeps longer. Part of the bag froze and soiled and the other part stayed fine. I had one more salad from the unspoiled part and then let it go. This waste and short fridge lifespan is why I am prioritizing growing lettuce. Every bag I buy at the the store I hope is the last. I also have a system where if I let something go bad I skip buying it next time. So my next lettuce purchase was butter lettuce. 

Then I got home to cook up salmon and had no spinach to go with it. I went to the front yard (because it is not a dog run) and picked all the clean and young looking dandelions for an experiment. Rinsed in vinegar and water, simmered in two changes of water, added more vinegar. Tasted it- it was sharp, and the leaves didn’t really get smaller when chewed. 

While the salmon was cooking I looked up whether dandelions are safe to eat. I found they upset stomachs sometimes. I decided not to eat all the greens I gathered. 

Mixed with the salmon they were perfect. Exactly right. Delicious. 

Turnout

Briefly- in dance you hold your body in different shapes, for safety, power, beauty. One is called turn out, and it is both fundamental and I think lifelong. The idea is, while standing upright, your hips would turn so far from the center line of your body as to make a straight, 180 degree line from your left toes through your left heel through your right heel to your right toes. 

This is a line I essentially have never seen myself make. Somehow I carry on, and live a rich, full life. In ballet class I just do something different. But on the ice... they told us to do it so I am trying. I am too new to know if there is a workaround. 

 

I’ve been working on my turnout. I check it at home standing on a rug that has a floral design laid out 8 points. I go from a scant 90 degrees before stretching, to similar to what you see above. I don't know if other people with this turnout self select out of these disciplines, or what, but this is a bit of an outlier in the direction of bad. What you also can't see is that I am using friction from the ground to hold this position, and once I raise a foot in the air on the ice my toe swivels in. 

However! I think I was only using turn out in class because other, more intermediate students were working on it, and I have much to work on before I get there properly myself. 

I did not need my wrist guards today at Coffee Club. From what I can see, the ethos at Snoopy's Home Ice is conservative for adults. We are really drilling the fundamentals so there is very little opportunity to fall down. Our coach even joked that falling out of an outside edge is "a hard fall" (so don't) which is the opposite of what they tell us in Oakland which is to fall forward only and never backward. I literally love that there is a life stage where you just hang out at the rink with your friends for thirty years after your kids are grown, I love to see seniors like glowing with vitality and following their dreams. And, I am learning that they have a different relationship to their knees, hips, and feet than I do, with different considerations. 

Okay there were millions of places to stretch my hips but they were kind of too nice. Like the barrier plexiglass was pristine, I can't put my skate on that. I ended up in like the saddest unintentionally weighted (from the skates) pigeon pose on a carpeted bench. Then class started but I didn't realize so I just used the totally empty outside of the rink to do very ill advised ballet barre leg swings in skates (ill advised because of the momentum and the blade. They felt great.) until my eyes focussed through the barrier and I saw classes forming and I hustled onto the ice. 

I guess I also just feel at home in Oakland in general so I can just pop my foot up wherever. I do avoid purpose built handrails out of courtesy but I will use a balustrade bar that could double as a handrail.