Day on the Mountain

Aside from the blisters(!?) on my inner shins, skiing was a blast. First time to go in 10 years and everything was fine. I started by taking a group lesson, which helped alleviate the fear of so much time passed. Quite a bit has changed as far as lodge buildings and new lifts, but I still remember that mountain pretty well. I skied there nearly every weekend as a kid. As soon as my lesson ended I jumped on the super quad and headed for the summit because I knew some of my favorite runs came down off of there. There were some icy patches, but nothing that spoiled a run or ever made me feel I was in over my head. 

The Girl and her friend had a 2-hour lesson and spent the rest of the day diligently and adorably trudging up the bunny slope and gliding back down. That left me with nothing else to do but enjoy the mountain and the day with its the wild weather, which went from sunny to blizzardy and back with clouds whipping across the sky and the sun a glowing moon-like disk behind them. 

It was a great pay off from a last minute decision. I plan to get back out there a few more times this season.

Back in the Saddle?

I got a generous Hanukah gift from my Dad and decided it is now feasible to take The Girl to Gunstock to learn how to snowboard. My plan was to take The Girl and a friend to do the newbie snowboarders' program and I would do something mellow, like taking a newbie x-country skier lesson. I called the Nordic Center to ask for details about the program and was told that the warm spell we just had has basically wiped out their snow base. That leaves me with a choice of sitting in the lodge all day, exploring the Laconia area (not all the exciting) or getting myself back on the skis for downhill action. (Suppose a newbie snowboarding lesson is a possiblity, but I tried that years and years ago and I spent most of my time falling down and getting up again. I have better odds of enjoying myself with skis.) The mountain offers a deal that includes an all-day lift ticket, equipment rental and a 1-hour group lessons for $95. It's kind of last minute for me to decide that I'm going to do this after a ten year gap, but I grew up skiing Gunstock every single weekend and I know there are nice gentle runs that I can stick to and be the pokey little skier I am.

R.I.P.

Wow. I just read that Ijima Ai was found dead in her apartment. I was never a big fan of hers, but I did admire how she came from her rough start as a porn actress to become a published writer and mainstream tv personality. She was a lot less dumb than so many of her counterparts.

Holiday Hell

I lived it this evening. It actually took one hour to get out of the parking lot of the Fox Run Mall because the traffic was so insane. Why in the world was I at the mall 3 days before Christmas at the end of the business day? Because The Girl needed to buy presents for her friends. It was a little bit bad getting into the mall around 3:30. It was insanity trying to get out an hour later. 

And somehow, I seem to find myself in that position every year because I think, "Oh, it's early enough in the day for me to just run in and get that little whatever it is I need to pick up without too much trouble." It's like a roach motel. Easy to get into and impossible to escape! 

Christmas Crunch

I thought I had it all under control when it came to knitting Christmas presents this year. I started before Thanksgiving and had a few gifts done even before December rolled around. And yet, here it is, less than a week before Christmas and I have four projects that need to be finished. It's not impossible to finish them all in time, but it would help a lot if I stopped wasting hours doing things the wrong way and then re-doing them the right way. That would definitely help.

Ice Out!

An ice storm came through on Thursday night that left us without electricity for a day and a half. I don't recall the storm seeming overly stormy and the next day it got sunny and things started melting, but the power didn't come back on. Luckily the Boyfriend is pretty magnificent when it comes to winter and survival. He had a fire going in the fireplace starting on Friday morning that kept us warm until we got power back this afternoon (Saturday). He also knew where to find the flashlights, candles and camping lanterns that kept us from being totally in the dark. 

He also recently purchased a solar/USB/ hand crank-powered combination radio and flashlight that let us get some news from the outside world. That's how we learned that about 300,000 of PSNH's 500,000 customer's were without power. The worst outages ever here in New Hampshire. 

I spent most of Friday moving from knitting to reading to playing my new DS game. 

By the afternoon I was getting stir crazy and it was nice out, so I decided to venture out in search of coffee. I stopped by my sister's house, which also had no power, and tried to call my mom, but her phone service was knocked out. A drive through town revealed that some neighborhoods and businesses had full power and were open and packed. 

Once the sun set it got cold and we ended up sleeping in the living room, near the fireplace. 

Saturday morning and we still had no power. I hung out for a while, but was getting really irritated at this no electricity thing. The charge on my cell phone had died overnight and I had no way to charge it and no way to get in touch with anyone, so I went out in search of a mobile charger that would work in my car. It looked like everything along Central Ave and all the big box stores in the neighboring town were open for business. At my fourth store I finally found a charger to work with my phone. I plugged it in and drove around a bit (after waiting in a drive-through line at Dunkin Donuts for some coffee) and finally was able to call my girl, who was at her dad's house that had never lost power through this whole ordeal. I was supposed to get her at noon, but couldn't even call her until 12:30 (there are no more pay phones anywhere!) and when I got a hold of her, I advised she stay there until I got power back at my house.

Once I got back home Boyfriend and I decided we would finally see what we could salvage from the fridge and freezer. It was a nice chance to clean them out, actually. Just as he carried the big cooler out onto the deck, the power came back on. Obviously we should have put all that stuff into the cooler last night because if we had, the power would have come back on then.

I went and got my girl, came home and took a shower and am now enjoying being clean, warm, and having access to all things electrical. One interesting thing about these winter weather events is that you get a chance to appreciate how it feels to be home with your people without any of the usual distractions. (On the flip side, I suppose that could be an uncomfortable scenario for some folks.) We were quiet, but I thought it was kind of nice and cozy.

I'm Back...?

Holy crap. A whole month? Really? 

I can look at this a few ways. I'm not spending much time blogging because I am spending more time participating in my life rather than analyzing it. That's not so bad.

Or I'm uninspired to write. That's kind of true, too, but not in a bad way. Just in a "I don't really feel like it now" way.

Maybe it's just that life is pretty good these days and I'm content. And contentment does not inspire me to blog. But that's not a bad thing.