You thought she was a goner, but the blogger came back...

Good evening to you, those faithful few who drop by to see what's up in the lives of us. I trust your reasoning capabilities tell you why you have not seen very many updates lately. We wake up when the phone or the alarm rings in the morning, whichever comes first, and we go to bed when the phone stops ringing at night. In between those two points in our day, the circles under the eyes get darker, voices take on a more desperate quality, tempers flare, and we work our way one day closer to that cold or flu that eventually forces us to have to take an ill-afforded day off. Illness borne of exhaustion is inevitably the thing that brings us to a halt this time of year. Actually, I am feeling good about this year, because every year in near memory, I have been so sick I have not been awake to watch the new year arrive, and if I have been, I have been in bed, in a fetal position, with little balls of Kleenex stuffed into my nose so it will not run all over my pillow, unable to sleep. And this year, not a sniffle threatened. Of course, a day later, the Cold that Will Take Us Down arrived and Bobby brought it home.

This year has seemed busier than other years. Of course we only have last year to compare it to, from a management position. Other years, we have had very busy days, interspersed with slow days to allow us time to recover. This year, every day is just big enough to stretch us to the limit, but just small enough to keep us from hiring more people. A crisis a day, seems to be the way it works out. Most of the crises come from being so booked we do not have anywhere to move someone, should their unit become impossible to stay in. Which, since we have just come through a bitterly cold snap, has happened more often than we care to remember. Sewage in a basement, a heater on the blink, several frozen water pipes, and a house with a well shallow enough that, now that the ground is frozen, is not refilling with ground water. Bobby has spent three days on that one, hauling the guests bottled water and disposable dishes, going to Denver to buy a giant water tank so he can haul them water in the back on his pickup, buying them passes to the local gym so they can shower. Not only do crises happen more often when it is -10 degrees, our guests seem to lose their zen over them much more quickly than they do when it is a pleasant, sunny thirty degrees and they can send the kids out to make snowballs. And of course, every year, something happens that prevents our highest paying guests from making it into the county to enjoy their snowflakes and firelight, and since we offer no refunds for weather delays, they must look for other ways to get their refunds. This year, the interstate was closed due to blowing snow, and later, avalanche mitigation, on new year's eve. And what crisis would be complete without a computer crash and loss of critical data? Oh yes, the main office computer, containing all of our homeowner billing and invoicing suddenly rolled over and died right in the middle of it all. For the last week, Bobby has been trying to reconstruct the files that could not be recovered.

But exhaustion aside, we are all surviving. It has been a year for company. We were so glad we got to see everyone again, even though it has only been for a fraction of the time they actually spent in our house. Besides Bobby and me, Marci, and Danny, we have Jay and Wendy here to work for a few weeks, Donny for the last month, Amber and Scarlett on occasion, we also had Lance and Crystal, Wendell and Michelle, and Laci for a few days, Kayla for a day, and Clark, Caleb, Mandy and Terra for several days.

Today was the first slightly slower day in the last month, so after work, I strapped on my snowboard and hit the mountain with Donny. Later we met three of his friends from Mississippi, and spent the evening shredding. it felt really good to feel the snow, albeit icy snow, under my board. I even hit the tabletops again. I had one spectacular crash. I must tell it from my spectator's point of view, as told to the rest of the group a few minutes later, (he was standing on the top of the jump, beside the launch) since my point of view consisted of flashes of light and dark, snow crunching under my head with every cartwheel, and wondering when I was ever going to stop tumbling and flailing. "You shoulda seen her crash, man... I didn't realize it was her, I thought she had taken the other way down, so she comes flying past me, and lands it, and her board goes out from under her, and I'm thinking, man, that girl's having a hard time of it down there, and then I realize, that's Susan! Hey, you know what she did right after she crashed? She like sits up right away and goes, 'WHOOOOO!!'." (As a side note, yes, a rebel yell is necessary after a particularly ugly crash to spare those watching you from thinking for one awful second that you have seriously injured yourself. If I may offer a bit of advice to anyone out there, pain is temporary. Unless your insides are on the outside, swallow your pain and be cool. Cavalier. Make it a story you can tell later. there's a reason blooper reals are popular, and there's also a reason they always cut before the writhing and groaning can begin. Your homies will love you for cutting your live blooper reel short. You will gain hero status, and you can always duck into the bathroom after the next run to check for swelling and bruising.)

Since the jump lines are right under the lift, and the lift was packed, cheers spread up and down the line of chairs above me. I am used to that, because some of Keystone's most challenging runs are located down the narrow, arrow-straight cuts cleared for the lift towers, but most of the time I hear things like "tear it up, baby!" or "nice turns, snowbunny!" (what can I say... men on vacation), not "how's your ass?" and "nice crash, eight-point-five!" After the inner ear fluid stopped sloshing and I regathered my thoughts and my equilibrium, as well as my hat and goggles, I hit it again, and only sat down at the end of it, and then, just to show the big pile of snow who was boss, hit it again. The crash that time was much less spectacular, but it cranked my arm behind my back, and turned my thumb black and blue. I made my way down to the chairlift thoroughly whipped, glaring at the mountain and hating it for beating me. There was a time I consistently landed the tabletops, but now, I am so convinced I am going to crash that I inevitably do, each time convincing me more, each landing a little more nervous and stiff and off balance.

Several days later- I have begun getting comments about the lack of blogging. I have a few minutes, sitting at the office computer, not wanting to drive home. In an hour, the snow has covered the jeep enough that it will need to be brushed off before I can drive. BUt it is nice here in the office. If I were at home, I would feel the need to be busy, but since I am here, not there, I can sit for just a while longer, listening to the radio, and browsing the internet.

I don't believe I have posted since we added Cat to our household. Actually to our garagehold, since our landlord does not appreciate feline family members. Cat spent the summer on the sunny deck of one of our properties, until she was let inside by one of our tenants. When our tenants moved out, they left her behind, sitting in an ever-deepening snowdrift, as fat and healthy and homeless as she could be. We finally took pity on her the night that it snowed three feet, and took her home, where she has been in command ever since. She maintains her queenly dignity at all times, and when it is removed by a disrespectful family member, forgiveness is hard to come by. She feels entitled to food from the fridge, and cuddles on warm laps, as long as they are initiated by her, and despises the garage we make her eat, sleep, and poop in. Several names have been given to her, but they do not seem to stick, so Cat she remains. I have a fear that she has a good home and her own people somewhere, but have to conclude from the fact that she was a stray all summer that either they disinherited her, or she them. At any rate, she is repulsed to the point of frantic by the thought of going to the bathroom in the house, so we forgive her queenly airs and tell her she is welcome to boss us around as long as she pleases. Too bad she doesn't feel the same way about drinking out of the royal blue toilet in the guest bath.

My days have consisted of keystone, and nothing else, for a month and a half. I am there from nine 0'clock am to 4 pm every day, following my housekeepers around, fluffing pillows and wiping up water glass rings, retrieving used soap bars, wiping nasties from behind toilets that the cleaners missed. I believe I have written in the past about Keystone food. I find myself with chronic gastric disturbances because of the fact that I am unwilling to drive back to Dillon just to eat, even if I did have the time. Too much information? I challenge you to an existence solely on Keystone food. You would start to think that such things were a part of everyday life as well, and nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, those big, foldable, charred slices, with their homemade sauce and toppings so stacked they tumble off and roll down your chin hit the spot about 3 o'clock, after the rush has slowed for both me and the four square feet and two employees that is Pizza 101. And we take care of each other. I over-tip them, and they undercharge me. It is a wonderful agreement that always leaves me with gas.

Earlier, writing about my crash the other day sparked a memory of Pizza 101. They are located directly across the driveway from The Goat, one of the bars in Keystone that caters to the unshaven, not the mahogany and moose head affair that the on-mountain bars who serve jager shots to short haired men tend to be. It features live music, and an affordable cover. The entrance dumps it's patrons out onto a sloped driveway, often icy. Since Pizza 101 is slow in the evenings, mostly deliveries, the employees sit behind the counter, just feet from the window, with nothing better to do but create giant cards with ratings on them, and, somber as judges at an athletic event, hold them up in the window as one by one, the inebriated ones tumble out, forgetting that footing in Keystone is not the same as the footing they are used to in Tampa. Somehow, I do not believe the ones who do the falling think it is quite as funny as the ones who watch the falling.