Stabbing monsters and dancing around poles on a perfect Colorado day

"Mama, are you still the 20 year old surfer chick named Tammy?"

Josie grinned up at me, a cheerful little Easter egg in her purple helmet, turquoise jacket, royal blue pants, and bright pink mittens.

We were at the top of the Strawberry Park Express Lift at Beaver Creek, getting ready to take one more run down the mountain before calling it a day.

And it had been an amazing day.

I had the kids for the weekend and the weather in the mountains was forecast to be beautiful, so I decided to take them skiing. They were excited to go, but they wanted me to teach them how to use poles.

I had been reluctant to teach them for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not a ski instructor. Second, I'm their mother. It is a truth universally acknowledged that children learning a new skill should learn from someone other than a parent. They're going to listen better - and have more fun - learning from some 25-year-old stoner named Tristan than from mom or dad.

But they really really really *please mama please* wanted to learn how to use poles, and ski lessons are expensive, and I figured I could give them the basics if they were willing to listen to me and not be all, "OKAY I HEARD YOU I'M DOING IT LEAVE ME ALONE!!" as they careened down the mountain doing the opposite of what I had instructed.

I decided that an alternate persona was in order.

"All right," I told them. "I will get you poles and teach you how to use them."

"YAAAAYYY!!"

"BUT..."

"What?"

"But we are going to treat this like a proper lesson. I am your ski instructor and I'm going to teach you what to do, and you are going to listen to me, do you understand? No arguing with me."

"Yes, Mama."

"And in order for it to be a proper ski lesson, I'm not going to be Mama."

"Who are you going to be?" They were intrigued.

"I'm a 20-year-old surfer chick named Tammy. I'm spending the winter in Colorado as a ski instructor so I can make money to go surfing in Tahiti this summer."

"If you're a surfer, wouldn't it make more sense to be a snowboarding instructor?" Zeke asked.  They were already buying into the concept.

"Perhaps," I responded. "But I happen to ski as well as snowboard, so this winter I decided to teach skiing."

He shrugged agreeably.

We went to a ski rental place and got some poles for them. Places like that order cheap poles in bulk and include them in a ski rental package, so if you're going in just needing some poles, they will often give them to you for free or for a nominal charge.

The guy said, "sure, 'rent' the poles for the weekend. No problem."

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing, don't worry about it."

"Wow, that's great. Thank you! Do you need my name or contact info?"

"No."

"When do you need them back?"

"Whenever."

See what I mean?

It turned out the hardest part about skiing with poles was not losing them.

We parked and caught the shuttle bus to the lift. After we got off the bus and were buckling our boots and putting on mittens and such, Zeke said, "OH NO!!"

"What happened?"

"I left my poles on the bus."

"Oh for God's sake, Zeke."

"There's a rental place right there. Let's go get some more."

So we got some more. The guy charged me $5.

Later, Josie dropped one of her poles getting on the lift.  The liftie gave it to a guy on the chair behind us so he could give to us at the top. After having lunch, when we went outside to retrieve our gear, Zeke got confused about which poles were his and almost took the wrong ones.

Chair lift selfie. Miraculously, we all have our poles.

But the lesson itself went swimmingly. Skiingly?

"What's my name?"

"Tammy!"

"OK, kiddos. Here's what you do..."

And I showed them how to hold their arms out and to use the poles to guide their turns.

"Just kiss the tip of the pole to the snow..."

They followed my line down the hill, giggling and kissing.

"Mwah! Mwah!"

They thought it was hysterical. But they learned to do it properly,

Borrowing a trick from my friend Christin, I explained how to use poles on moguls.

"Pretend the top of the bump is the eye of an evil monster. You need to get around the monster, and in order to kill it, you need to stab it in the eye. So as you're going down, reach forward, stab your pole into the monster's eye, and then ski around it."

Zeke practiced a few times and proceeded to bomb down a black mogul run, woohoo-ing all the way.

"I think I nailed that one," he told me afterwards.

We used a different idea on steep groomers. Josie and I were at the top of a run with a pretty intense pitch, and she was nervous.

"Mamaaaaa..." 

Her voice wavered.

"I'm not Mama. I'm Tammy, remember?"

That made her laugh.

"You're going to do fine. Touch the pole to the snow and turn around it. Just dance around the pole. I'll be next to you the whole time, doing the same thing."

She took a deep breath, pointed her skis down the hill, and did exactly what I told her.

By the end of the day, she and Zeke were zipping through the trees, doing little jumps, and shaking their butts with glee as we explored the different parts of the mountain. Zeke even tried some tricks in the terrain park.

Blue skies, perfect temperatures, and beautiful vistas. And for some reason, Josie insisted on holding her poles up over her head like that every time I took her picture.

Finally, they were ready to go home.

"Mama, are you still the 20-year-old surfer chick named Tammy?"

"Yep, for a few more minutes," I answered.

"Well, Tammy, you're a good teacher."

"Thanks, chicklet. Let's head on down and you can show me your stuff."

We drove home, tired and happy, ready to call me "Mama" again.

A day on the slopes

In every direction, it's whitish grey and the visibility is limited - clouds plus blowing snow from the wind.  The lift ends above the tree line, so it's all very bare and exposed - there's something almost desolate feeling about it. I'm well bundled up, but I can feel the frigid air on the gap between the top of my goggles and the top of my balaclava, and on the tip of my nose.

Ascending into the void. #skiing #keystoneresort

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Jan 16, 2016 at 12:14pm PST

I ski over to the top of the run, where the incline starts. It's a steep run, classified as a black.  I'm wearing my low/flat light goggle lenses, but I'll have to really focus on the snow, both to avoid ice patches - there have been a few of them today - and also because the light sometimes makes the surface look like nothing but a fuzzy white expanse, without any ability to see the detail.

I start down, at first at a mellow pace, checking out the snow and the light.  The snow feels good - my skis turn cleanly, and I can see the surface just fine.  So I pick up speed. I feel my heart rate start to increase, the muscles in my legs engage, feel the wind on my face and the rush in my ears.  The run makes a big curve to the left, and right at the curve there's a sharp increase in the pitch.  I take it down at the steepest point, picking up even more speed. I'm going very fast, bringing me right to the knife edge of safety - if I catch an edge or lose control at all, I'm in real danger of being severely injured. So I pick a line and stay on it, keeping my core and my legs rock solid, shutting out everything in my life except what my body is doing at this very instant.

My legs start burning, so I hold the line until the terrain levels off a little bit and I can stop to take a rest near some trees. Feeling the pounding in my heart, I take some deep breaths, giving my muscles a short break.  I look around and marvel at the beauty around me - the grandeur of the mountains, the snow on the trees, the sun that's starting to peek through the clouds.  I stand there and smile as my heart rate starts to go down again.

After a minute or so, I head down again and finish the run.  And I spend the day going up and down and up and down the mountains, trying to cover as many different runs as I can.

It's exhilarating. I love the gorgeous setting and the strenuous physical exercise. I love the speed. I love that I have to be totally engaged and focused, both mentally and physically, in order to avoid killing myself. I love that sometimes it's a little bit scary. I even love the cold - it assaults my senses and makes me feel alive.   The entire experience shuts out every stressor in my life and puts me totally in the moment, which, with my constantly buzzing brain that I can't turn off, is a respite.

At the end of the day, I head back to the front of the resort and make my way down a final run to my car.  Along the way, I see a ski patrol person on a snowboard, pulling a sled behind her containing a guy who apparently injured himself.  She passes me and I'm surprised she's going as fast as she is, because it's a blue run that has some steep sections where it seems like it would be harder to maintain control if you're attached to a big, cumbersome sled behind you.  But hey, what do I know?

All of a sudden she catches an edge and falls, and the sled carrying the injured guy passes her and starts sliding down a steep incline.  She's on her stomach with her arms out in front of her, holding onto the rope attached to the sled, digging the edge of her board into the snow in an effort to slow herself down.  But the sled is too heavy, and it continues to slide down the hill.  Then it hits a bump and the sled tips over, dumping the injured guy onto the ground and grinding the whole spectacle to a stop.  I ski over to her and ask if she needs help or if she wants me to call someone.  She waves me off, clearly annoyed and embarrassed.

I feel like it's all a metaphor for something, though I'm not sure what.

The Single Line

There's something really cool about skiing on opening day.  I'd never done it before, but the stars aligned and a flex day coincided with opening day at Keystone.

It's more of a badge of honor than a great day of skiing - there was literally only one run open in the entire resort.  But it was a long run, and the conditions were actually not bad at all - soft powdery snow, only a couple of icy patches, nothing too skied off.  It was cloudy and snowing, so the drive over Loveland Pass was of the white-knuckle variety, but no one was in a hurry and everyone got over the mountain in one piece.

And the conditions meant that the light was kind of flat, making it difficult to see the snow clearly.  But still, it was great to be out skiing again.  I didn't do too many runs - I didn't want to burn my legs out on the first day, plus after a certain point, skiing the same run over and over again gets kind of old.  But it was really fun.

Catching snowflakes

I was skiing alone, which I love.  When you ski alone, you get to go at your own pace, take the runs you want as fast as you want, eat when you want, and use the "single" line to get on the lift.  Meaning if it's a four-person chair and there's a group of three in the main line, the liftie will send a single in to fill out the group.  So you get to ride up with different people who are also excited to be at Keystone on opening day.

The view from the chairlift

One of my rides was with a group of guys who looked to be in their 30s and who, based on their conversation, had known each other since at least college.  In a nice touch, they had cans of Keystone Ice beer that they were happy to share with me.  I never drink when I ski, but I figured a little bit of beer wasn't going to kill me.  And it didn't.

The lift was moving slowly, so I got to listen to their stories.

We were talking about wanting to have fun doing things like skiing and biking, but without being a total adrenaline junkie about it.  It's good to have a great time, but nobody wants to die.

Andy said, "all I want to do is stuff like ski long fast runs, drink beer, play some PlayStation, have sex."

We all nodded.  Sounded good to us.

"And if you can do some of those things at the same time, all the better, right?"  he added.

I chuckled.  Hanging with bros is always entertaining.

Andy kept going.  "Well, y'all know I'm a big World War II buff, right?""

"Yeah," said Dave.

"One night in college, I was having sex with my girlfriend, but I was over her facing the TV, which she couldn't see because it was kind of behind her, and there was a World War II documentary playing on the History Channel. So I got to have sex while watching a World War II documentary. It was awesome."

I laughed out loud.  "Oh, that poor woman," I said.

"Any woman having sex with Andy can be called a 'poor woman,'" joked Dave.

"You joke, but who wouldn't want to combine some of their favorite things like that?"

He had a point.

I'm not a huge World War II buff.  So for me, it would have to be having sex while somehow simultaneously singing blues standards in a smoky club and also watching Ted Olson argue a civil rights case at the Supreme Court.

That would be totally hot.

You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan, and the next five years trying to be with your friends again.

Lately, there has been quite a bit of news and media attention about the Greek system in American colleges and universities, all of it negative.  Campus rapes.  Hazing.  Racism.  Under the articles about these incidents, I frequently see comments from people who question whether the time has come for fraternities and sororities to be abolished.  And even though I was in a sorority in college, I understand their points.

Being in a sorority involves going through a grueling weeks-long rush process. I didn't even understand how brutal it was until I was on the other side and participating in all-night sessions in which the social fate of some poor girl, and whether we would deign to include her in our group, was put to a vote, based on notes that we all made after talking to her for 5 minutes ("Blue skirt with bird-shaped pin - seemed awkward and uncomf., too much makeup, kind of boring - loser" "Red dress, blond, from Seattle - funny story abt summ. camp. Cute, smart - YES").

Every year there were tears and fights over who was invited back and who wasn't.  Every year we gained weight from midnight pizza and sub runs to make up for the fact that during 3 hours of parties, we had only eaten popcorn.  Every year I got bronchitis. It was fucking miserable, and it made me feel mean and awful and occasionally ashamed to be part of such a judge-y, superficial endeavor.

And yet.

And yet, I made incredible friends.  Friends with whom I am still extremely close, with whom I communicate almost every day.  Friends who I always make time to see when I am in their hometown, and vice-versa.  Friends here in the Denver/Boulder area.

Incredibly, there are six of us who were all at UVA together at the same time, from the classes of '91, '92 and '93.  We meet up for dinner as often as we can, but not as often as we'd like, because everyone is busy with jobs or kids or husbands or just the general business of being grown-ups.  My friend Stacy does Beachbody stuff with me.  My friend Christin and I ski and climb mountains together.  My friend Karen comes over for Passover seder.

Karen and Cathy co-own a cabin up in Winter Park, right by the Winter Park ski resort.  This past weekend, five of us were able to spend Friday night up there and then ski together all day Saturday. We hung out watching basketball, eating dinner, getting caught up on each other's lives, and enjoying the company of old friends.  And then the next day, we had one of the most glorious days of skiing I've ever had.

The weather was beyond perfect.  Bright blue, cloudless sky without a hint of breeze, with a high of about 40.  Even up at the very top of the mountain, above the tree line (about 11,000 feet), I was so warm that I skied in just a turtleneck sweater and a down vest, and most of the day I skied without my gloves.  We are all at different levels of proficiency, but we mostly skied together and cheered each other on and chatted endlessly on the chair lift.  I felt so grateful to have these wonderful women in my life.

We talked about how young and unformed we were when we met, at an age when we were still figuring out who we were and what we wanted out of life.  But even as silly, naive 18-year-olds, it turns out we had amazing taste in friends.  As Christin put it, "I have retrospective faith in our 18-year-old selves." So however skeptically I look back on the sorority experience as a whole, or in the abstract, I cannot deny that it brought me some of the best people I've ever met.

The Fraser Valley and surrounding mountains, as seen from the top of Winter Park.  I feel sorry for people who will never see this view in person.

We skied until the lifts shut down, happy and tired and with quads pleasantly sore.  I know I gush about how great it is to live here, but I can't really say it enough.  To have such terrific experiences with good friends, being outside in the sunshine and fresh air, exercising and feeling healthy, in some of the most beautiful mountains on earth -- it's pretty hard to beat.

These experiences are what matter.  This is what we relish even as we look back and wonder where the time went and how could we possibly be in our mid-forties with kids and careers and mortgages and husbands (or in my case, a divorce).  I feel this at my India and Israel reunions as well- that sense of recapturing youth by maintaining these lifelong friendships.

We're already planning on doing it again next year.

Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains

If you're a skier and you have kids, the early years are rough.*  Hitting the slopes either means trading days on the mountain with your spouse so that one can ski while the other watches the kids, or paying exorbitant amounts of money for on-mountain daycare or ski school.  Seriously, a day of ski school can cost about half the amount of an annual season pass, so unless you're rolling in cash (which I am decidedly not), it can be prohibitively expensive to do it more than a few times a season.  You dream of the day when both kids can ski and you can all head out together.

When that day comes, it is glorious.

Zeke has been able to ski with me since last season.  He's can't go on some of the super-steep runs that I like, and he's not as fast as I am, but we can go out together and have a great time.  He's hilarious - he skis down the hill singing to himself and shaking his butt in a little ski dance, or hooting and hollering with glee because he's having so much fun.

Zeke sings to himself as he skis down a run at Keystone.

This is Josie's first season skiing.  We put her in ski school for 3 days in December, and then took her out on green runs with us.  Her very first non-ski-school day she was plowed over by a snowboarder who was going way too fast in a slow, crowded area, and we had to go home after one run because she was totally freaked out.

This was heart-breaking for a number of reasons.  Of course we were bummed for her, because she was so scared and unhappy.  But getting to that first run is the product of about four hours worth of preparation, including getting up at 5 to pack the car, then getting the kids up and dressed and into the car, then driving up through mountain passes and ski traffic, then parking and unloading the car and lugging all of the gear from the car to the lodge and getting everyone into their boots and making sure jackets are zipped and thumbs are properly situated in mittens and does everyone have their pass? and then shuffling over to the lift.  So when you got through all of that and you only get one run in, a little part of you dies.

Since then, she has had a few more days on the mountain, but the kids basically missed the entire month of January because of their trip to Australia, plus in January and February we got a bunch of big winter storms that all seemed to fall on the weekends, and doing the drive when the weather is like that is not something I'm crazy about.  So she hasn't had many days to work on her skills and get more comfortable.

Until the stars aligned this past weekend.

I had the kids for the weekend, and the weather report said that it was going to be sunny and in the high-30s/low 40s.  Perfect spring skiing conditions.  I decided to get a hotel room up in the mountains so that we could do two days without having to drive home at night.  We decided to go to Breckenridge because it's got a great section that's perfect for beginners, which is what we needed for Josie.

And man, she killed it.  On Saturday, she was a little bit tentative because it had been awhile, but we stayed on the easy stuff and on every run, I had her follow me down and ski in my tracks so that she would make big wide turns and control her speed.  On Sunday, she was feeling like a pro, venturing down steeper runs, following Zeke as he skied through the trees, and figuring out how to get on and off the chair lift by herself.  She even did some ski dancing, just like her brother.

What topped it all off was the extraordinary weather.  Brilliant blue skies, comfortable temperatures - Josie and I both skied without gloves on Sunday, and if I had had a convenient place to stash my jacket, I would have taken it off - perfect conditions.  Days like that make it hard to imagine living anywhere else.  Colorado is so beautiful.

Even the drive up is gorgeous.

View from the chairlift.  The sky is so intensely blue it almost doesn't look real.

The hotel was extremely basic, but it did have a pool for the kids to splash around in.

The obligatory selfie on the chairlift.

We skied with our arms out and pretended to be airplanes.  We went through a "haunted forest," an area through the trees that had spooky sounds and giant spiders and snakes to ski through - it helps kids learn how to make solid turns and control their speed, plus it's silly and fun.  I would turn on the music on my phone while we rode the lifts, and we would chair-dance to Katy Perry and Bruno Mars's Uptown Funk.

When we got home last night, we were talking about how much fun we had skiing together.  It really was amazing to be able to enjoy a day like that with the kids, knowing that they were having a great time.

"Mama, that was the best. weekend. ever.  BEST. WEEKEND. EVER!"

I don't know if it's the best weekend ever - they're young, so I don't want to sell their future short. But certainly up there in the top 5.


*I fully recognize that this is "rough" only in the "first-world-problems" sense of the word.  

Thursday Tidbits

• We got a juicer.  

Over the weekend, J and I were chilling out on the couch and started watching Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead, a documentary about Joe, an Australian guy who goes on a 60-day juice fast when he finally reaches a breaking point with his shitty health - he was 300 pounds, exhausted, and had some sort of auto-immune skin disease that caused him to break out in itchy rashes all the time.  He films himself doing the fast as he travels across the U.S. talking to people about health and healthy eating, and by the end of the fast, he's lost a shit-ton of weight (something like 90 pounds), feels amazing, and has been taken off all the prednisone he was on for his disease because he's no longer having flare-ups.  Along the way, he meets Phil, a truck-driver who weighs 420 pounds and is a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack, and Phil is inspired and decides to follow Joe's lead and starts his own juice fast and healthy living plan (all of this is under the supervision of a doctor).  By the end of the movie, he's lost almost 180 pounds and his life is transformed.

I eat this stuff up.  My fitness business is all about getting people to just *start* living healthier, and take it a day at a time.  So I was truly verklempt watching Phil's transformation, and J and I were so inspired by the whole thing (plus, we're totally lemmings) that I had gone onto Amazon.com and ordered a juicer before the movie was even over.  Neither of us needs to go on a 60 day juice fast, but we're going to work homemade fruit and veggie juices into our diets, and do 3-5 day juice fasts on a regular basis, maybe once a month or so.  We signed up for a CSA delivery that starts on Monday, and I'm off to the grocery store with a list that includes kale, beets, ginger root, celery, apples, and all kinds of other stuff that we'll be juicing.

And yes, I know I'm a geek. 

• Josie has hit the Terrible Twos. 

Zeke never really went through the Terrible Twos.  His were more the Terrible Threes.  So when Josie suddenly went from being a sweet, agreeable little monkey to a whiny, bossy asshole, we were a bit taken aback. 

In her defense, she's not an asshole all the time.  Just a lot of the time.  Fussing, bitching, throwing things, crying over nothing.  But, it'll pass.  Zeke, conversely, went from being a moody asshole to an absolute delight (except for the constant poop and fart talk, but I'll deal).  I guess it's the universe's way of balancing things out.

• Zeke is headed to big-boy school (sort of).

I submitted Zeke's application for pre-kindergarten a couple of weeks ago (he'll be 5 this year, but because his birthday is after the October 1 cut-off, he'll start kindergarten when he's nearly 6).  I look at him and he's not a baby or even a toddler.  He's a kid. 

I don't understand how this happened.

• The light at the end of the tunnel.

The move from Hawaii put us in a HUGE financial hole.  Huge.  I had to cash out a 401(K), then I fucked up the taxes on it so we were slammed with a $10K tax bill 2 years ago.  Our tenants in our Hawaii house then abandoned their lease early, so we had to stop paying the mortgage 14 months ago.  We're trying to get rid of the house in a short sale, but we've been under contract twice and twice the buyers have walked away for various and sundry reasons.  I'm hopeful that third time will be the charm (and that we'll manage to close before the HOA forecloses as they've been threatening to do).  Plus we've had (and still have) about $2K a month in daycare expenses, J had hernia surgery then lost his job, one of our cars kept breaking down, our pipes froze last winter, the A/C broke in the summer, etcetera etcetera.

But.  The huge weight I've felt in my chest is starting to lighten.  Last year's tax refund paid off the previous year's deficit, and this year's we actually get to keep!  And we're selling one of the cars.  And my Beachbody business is starting to earn me some real money (not enough to quit my job - yet - but enough that it can make a difference in our lives and our financial stability)*.  So we'll be able to pay off two loans altogether, and start paying down another debt, and maybe actually start to save a little bit. 

It's so nice to have a little bit of relief after feeling for over 3 years that we were drowning.

• Vegas, baby.

I'm going to Vegas in June for Beachbody's big annual coach's convention.  The money I'm making from the business allows me to afford the trip.  I will be rooming with my friend Ferreh, who is hilarious.  If she and I lived in the same city, we would get in a lot of trouble together.  And I've never been to Vegas. 

Can. Not. Wait.

I've got a flex day tomorrow, so I will be hitting the slopes on my new skis.  Have a good weekend, all!

*Seriously - if you're unemployed, underemployed, looking for a side gig to provide some extra cash flow, email me.  Not only is there money to be made, but it is so much fun to help people get healthy.