Le weekend
Finally got to ski on Sunday, and though the weather wasn’t as nice as predicted and the going was extremely slick coming down the pass into Wilmington, VT, and though Mount Snow was absolutely jammed (by my reckoning, because I don’t go on holiday weekends as a rule), we had a great day. The girls both had real breakthrough days — Bek’s first time on shaped skis, and she was doing pressure changes like a pro. Hannah, who last year was really getting the rhythm of small turns down before she broke her collarbone, picked it right back up and started ticking off her timing with her pole plants. And Lee, who was out last season as a result of the broken wing, got the next to last private lesson in the place and said it all finally came together for her. She’s got the jones now, studying the map and figuring out what she’s going to try next. Very cool. And I had what I like to think of as a “technique day,” when I get to focus very hard on turns and stops and don’t have to worry about bombing down the mountain. We actually mostly stuck to the greens; we were going to take on a couple of blues I know the girls can do, but the visibility at the top was terrible and Hannah had an entirely rational fear of descending down a slope she didn’t know and couldn’t see 10 feet down. It was one of those days when you can’t be sure that the grown-ups around you aren’t as much of a threat as the kids, because on a holiday weekend everybody’s either just learning or skiing way beyond their ability, and even though Mount Snow has more trails open than anybody else around, there are still chunks of the mountain that aren’t available. So come on, snow!
It was Young Couples in Looovve Night at the grocery store last night. Isn’t that sweet? Or maybe it’s sickening; I can’t remember which. I finally figured out that what annoys me about it is just the memory that once upon a time we had so much free time that we could actually go grocery shopping together. When we were in our early twenties, just married, renting, no kids, we could go out and do our huge ($80) grocery shopping late on Friday night, come home, put the stuff away, and then stay up late late late watching Bowery Boys movies on WSBK. We could get up ridiculously early and go to the Regional Market in Syracuse to do our weekly produce shopping. I wouldn’t go back to my twenties for a gazillion dollars (that’s roughly a thousand pazusas — and that’s a lotta pazusas), but sometimes I feel a pang for the idea of not having so much that just has to be done — house repairs, house cleaning, all the kids’ stuff, exercise, and the need to advance in Grand Theft Auto. The pressure of too much to get done.
Making slow progress on the new room, stripping the floor a little square at a time. It’s going pretty well. Need lots more stripper, though; been laying it on too thin. Also got our new rug, the one we promised each other for Christmas, installed in the living room, and it looks fantastic. We almost look like normal people with a normal living room now. The girls are hugely disappointed at the new “no breakfast in the living room” rule, which had provided them with exceedingly leisurely Saturday mornings, but that’s the way it goes.