We are just coming down from a three day marathon of the x games, friends coming over to take advantage of our cable in the evenings. Yesterday I recorded not only the evening events but the daytime ones, as well. I cooked dinner yesterday evening, we ate it and planted ourselves in front of the TV for at least four hours of extreme winter sports. And that was with fast-forwarding through events we did not care about, rider and skier interviews, and commercials.
Hmm. Not sure what I did. Hit enter for a new paragraph, and accidentally posted this. Oh, well. Anyone reading my blog today will see half a post until I can finish the other half and add it.
I got out the coffee ice cream the other night, to go with cookies fresh from the oven, and opened the box. It was empty. Seriously. Who does that? So I offered my guests hot chocolate with Bailey's Irish Cream instead. Got out the Bailey's. Empty. And then they had the nerve to say that seemed a lot like a Susan. Putting empty containers that had once contained sweets back where they belonged, so nobody would notice their contents had mysteriously disappeared. In my defense, I do not recall doing any such thing. But I also know that B does not like coffee ice cream or Irish Cream. And Andy is not tall enough to reach either, and lacks opposable thumbs to remove the lids and caps of such items.
In addition to watching the best of the best skiers and riders for the last three evenings, I have snowboarded enough to rub the balls of my feet raw. Skin is peeling off of them. It's a common winter malady for me. If I ride for too long, all the rocking onto and back off of the balls of my feet, especially in my snowboard socks that are rubbed thin there, tends to remove the callouses, then the skin below the callouses. Even when I am on my heel edge, my toes are still being pushed into the front of my boot, so when I come back to toe edge, they have to come back to center. Now I am walking gingerly, putting band-aids over the raw spots.
But riding has been excellent lately. Not so much fresh snow, at least not on piste, but soft snow, from a week of about two inches fresh every night, followed by several warm days that created icy slopes again, but also an urge to shed layers and enjoy a deep blue sky and burning sun and the park, echoing with whoops and yells from riders hitting features and calling to each other, the smell and sound of melting snow (have you ever noticed the faint crackle of the snow when it melts, and the smell of it? It's such a fresh, cold smell.), the tang of pine sap in the air and, yes, an occasional waft of smoke from a group of potheads hiding in the trees.
My park skills are far from skillful. I look at the features I took five years ago and do not understand how I did it. I stay far away from rails. But the jumps are calling my name again, since there really is nothing like flying. Even if one has to come down eventually, and hard. And I can't clear the lip of the half pipe, but I still enjoy hitting the walls as high as I can. So, although I do not do anything fancy, I have had fun spending several afternoons lately making loops over and over the jump lines, trying to get comfortable enough with being in the air, and staying balanced while in the air, that I can start attempting things more challenging than a boring board grab.
In the last few days I have been through all of my powder stashes on Keystone, dodging rocks and tree stumps not yet covered by snow. I have only had two crashes, but I can feel them both. One was while riding switch through a flat spot. I caught an edge and slammed down the way I used to when I was learning to ride. One instant riding tall, the next, flat on my back on the hard-packed run, looking up at the sky through watery eyes and gasping for breath. I am feeling the whiplash from it in my neck. The other was directly under the lift line, shredding bumps. I swung from straightlining down my line onto my back edge, slid for a speed check, and barely registered the clink of my front edge hitting a rock before I was tomahawking down the hill, head, then board, then head in the snow. I sat up dizzily to cheers from the chair above me, and one "You fall with STYLE, girl!" That one cranked my arm in it's socket, and it still hurts to rotate it.
And yes, this is in addition to working, just so nobody thinks I never work. It has been in the mornings between 8:45 and 11:00 (which is when the first cleans of the day are done and ready for me to inspect) and after 4:00, when the day's work is done. I honestly do not know what I would do if I worked at a ski resort that did not have night skiing. The five hours not spent on the slopes are spent running at a manic pace, because I have only five hours in which to do eight hours of work.
There are only twelve more weeks of winter. At least until we start seeing consistantly warm days. Like 40 degree days. It is now February. In two weeks, the crescendo starts to build. Valentine's day, then President's day, and then Spring Break in two weeks, the accordian season will be over. (That's what I call the season we're in right now, where weekends are nearly 100 percent booked, and midweek I can take a day off because everybody went home.) In two short weeks, we will be crazy busy until after Easter. And then, sweet, sweet time off. A vacation. Spring. Mud season. Fruita mountain biking. The first few actually warm days, spring run-off. B getting antsy because we're not getting a paycheck. Me telling B to can it. Me riding the corn and slush at A-basin. Me skiing up Keystone after it closes for the summer. Me starting running again. Me biking anywhere I can find dry ground. Me thinking life is pretty sweet. Me telling B so. B scowling and saying he's glad I'm so darn happy all the time. Me telling B to just admit that he likes me. B rolling his eyes and muttering "whatever" so he won't have to smile, before going back to working on bookwork, taxes, all the things that he seems to think are so necessary, and that keep him inside on a melty spring day.
And now, after a post of less substance, if it were possible, than my last one, I am off to work, minus snowboard gear. I had big plans for today that involved more riding, but I am afraid I shall just have to work instead. And I would like to point that out to the faithful few who think I do nothing but play.
I posted to my Facebook profile this morning that I wished I had a clone to go to work for me, so I could spend more time in the really wonderful part of my life, out on the slopes. But then I got to thinking that any clone of mine would probably do a hurried job so she could go snowboarding, if she were actually a true genetic copy. Bummer. I suppose a clone of me is about the last thing we need around here. If I want it done right, i'm just going to have to do it myself. I can barely trust me. And besides, if there were two of me, the peanut butter would always be empty.
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