HURRY!! HARD!!!

Have I mentioned that I curl?

That's right. . . and not my hair either. I started curling last year and, not gonna lie, it's the most fun a person can have on ice, IMO. I curl at the Green Bay Curling Club. The folks there are lovely. I'm fairly sure though that most (if not all) curlers are pretty nice. It's just an "aggressively nice" (thanks Sharon) sport. Point in case: When you start out a match, everyone shakes hands and says "good curling." You do the same after each match. Apparently there's also this thing where if someone drops their broom, other folks will do the same thing just so the initial broom dropper doesn't have to feel embarrassed. I've never actually seen this happen though.

Curling is one of those sports that looks super easy. The reality though is that it is not, in fact, super easy. For those who don't know thing-one about curling, think back to that scene from Christmas Vacation where Clark sprays that cooking oil on his saucer sled. . . .

It kind of feels like that the first time you step out on the ice with curling shoes on because one of the shoes has a teflon "slider" on it. My hockey playing kid proclaimed it's harder to stay up on a slider than on hockey skates and I'm going to go with that because it makes me feel very powerful that I can do something better than a 19-year-old.

I've only been curling a year but I've already had some pretty neat encounters. I got to meet Charlie Berens last year when he came to our club to record his show. I mean. . . how cool is that?! He was very nice and accommodated anyone who wanted a picture very graciously.

Seriously though. . . if you've ever thought, "I'd like to try that sometime. . . ." you should sign up for a learn-to-curl at your local club. I promise folks will be nice. You'll meet all sorts of interesting people and (if you go in for a bit of imbibing) it's a 100% guarantee you'll get some beer out of it.