Noise in the Shape of Writing

Yesterday we took Tanya out to Mt. High for ski lessons. I didn't know when we signed her up that they were all-day lessons. However, once I realized that we would be able to watch her from a balcony no more than 15 yards distant -- a balcony attached to a bar with a complete set of microbrews (oh!) -- we settled in quite nicely.

By noon, Elly was done freezing her butt off, and we had tasted all the beer selections at least once, so we split up. She went to the car to study trig for her test (to be a teacher), and I bundled up a bit more and stood in the snow.

You might say Tanya took to skiing like a duck to water, but it was more like an ice skater to snow. Her many hundreds of dollars in ice skating lessons paid off during the near-hundred dollar snow bunnies course. She had the basics of snow plow (known as the "pizza" in class) and by midday was was getting pretty good at "french fries" (parallel skiing... ok, not really parallel, heck, even *I* can't really parallel ski very well). At that point I was looking forward to the enjoyment of teaching her on future trips how to get on and off a ski lift. (Lots of scary moments of timing the lift bench worrying about falling, and then *actually* falling while getting off at the top of the ski lift. You know, just like daddy did at age 16.)

I was robbed of that pleasure. They threw her right onto the lifts after a short lunch of PB&J.

And she didn't fall. She appeared -- through the pretty cool zoom scope on my vidcam -- that she was having a grand time all the way up, even. And then there she was... zooming down the bunny slope!

It seems her only complaint during the course of the day was all those "stupid snowboarders who keep sitting down in the middle of the road". It's true. There were tons of them! When I learned to ski in 1984, there was maybe ONE snowboarder on the entire mountain. In the early 90s, when I peaked, there was about one boarder per 20 skiers. Now that statistic has flopped and, from what I could see, there were easily 20 boarders for each skier. (And there were wierd little dual-tip skiers as well. I gotta try those things!)

To liven things up, around 2PM a storm had blown in and by 3pm there were what looked to me like "white out" conditions. I couldn't see her at all! It was blindingly white, and cold, and exciting. I could only imagine what it must have been like for her on her first day out to get to ski in a complete flurry.

So, surprise surprise -- by the end of the day Tanya did NOT want to go home! I told her that in a couple hours, when the pain kicked in, she'd be HAPPY she hadn't gone for any more runs. And, sure enough, once we started taking off the boots, she was moaning with pain.

But it was short-lived. She can't wait to go back, of course. And neither can I. Considering that at my age and ski skill, she will almost be catching up with me in a couple trips, there are only fun times ahead in the next couple seasons of snow.