Escapism

It was a cold Sunday afternoon, the kind where you spill your tea down your front, and, cursing, realize that it has soaked into the fabric, or frozen, or soaked in AND frozen.

I shifted from foot to foot amidst the flakes of frozen tea I'd brushed from my chest and watched the polished surface of the speedskating oval, the children in spandex and goggles and the parents in lumpy down and bellaclava.

After several rounds of patting down my pockets for tissue, I abandoned the speedskaters for the humidity of the observation deck, the synchronized swimmers, dive class, and Sunday afternoon lapsters on one side and the parents wise enough to watch their children skate on 'glace' behind glass on the other.

I've always enjoyed the homonym of the English 'glass' and the French 'glace' - a very sympathetic transliteration, to my mind.

Once inside, I could have settled back into my own lumpy down and dozed but then, speaking of glass, there was the polished surface of the windows, the reflections, the angles, the textures.

Not sure this one is processed quite right, but...