Biting Off More Mountain than You can Chew

The ski mountain we usually go to in the northern Pocono's went belly up a couple of years ago.  So we tried a new place outside of Scranton, PA.

Figuring out the parking and how to get to the lifts had its usual draining issues.  We spent the whole day going down Intermediate hills (lots of slush and ice that day).  With about two runs left in us we ran into some skiers with the medical patches on their backs and asked them if there was a lift to get us back up to the parking level.  They directed us to a ski run called, “Cannonball.” They said it wasn't too bad, maybe two small tough areas.  Naturally I refuse to ask the important follow up demasculizing question:  “Excuse my whimpy-ness, but what exactly do you mean when you say, “Tough Areas”?”        You’d think by now…

So for our last run (tired) we headed down what we thought was Cannonball.  As we started down the path, it had double black diamonds marked.  I thought there must be a split in the trail ahead and Cannonball was off this.  Cannonball never appeared.

Instead, at our first stop we came to a very steep incline and my kids, 12 and 10 at the time, looked at me like I had three heads.  Everyone thought maybe we should just walk back up and take a shuttle bus to the parking lot.  I would hear none of it.  (First, walking up a hill...very embarrassing, Second, even more embarrassing, I'd need paramedics with pure oxygen by the time I'd get back to the top.  Better that I break my leg and be removed from the mountain with honor.)  I convinced everyone that we'd conquered hills worse than this before, and we'd get through it...which we did.  Who knows better than me!?!

Exhausted, we ski further and now run into what can only be described as a sheer cliff with moguls rippled through the incline.  (Think the movie “The Perfect Storm" where George Clooney is battling the seas but at the end you see the sun coming over the horizon and you think, “Hey, that was a close one, but we made it.”  Then a monster wave comes and smashes them to bits…The End.) My daughter got teary-eyed and asked not to be pushed anymore.  My son immediately jumped out of his skis and announces that he’s walking back up the hill… and started doing just that.  I looked at my wife and could see I had a mutiny on my hands.  They all had that look on their faces like something out of a Laurel & Hardy movie where Stan has screwed up and Ollie has a disgruntled look on his face and says, “Well here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

At this point I’m thinking, where’s that helpful ski patrol…I know where I want to stick my poles. 

I’ve got a mess on my hands now.  It’s time to divide and conquer.  I suggest to my wife that she go down first and do some reconnaissance, and I’ll keep an eye on the kids.  I’m now seriously planted in Negotiating Skills 301 class.  I give one last attempt at convincing them that as much as they've never done moguls before, and granted, there’s also a mind-bending incline, it’s just a matter of taking it slowly, possibly falling a little…but it won’t really be so bad. My son tells me he could be killed.  I tell him that’s not helping to build his sister’s confidence.

Ultimately I convinced them that there was no physical way that we were going to be able to climb out of this mountain.   It would have been like trying to scale an ice covered Everest in boots that have absolutely no traction.  I also know that after the first 20 feet I’d be carrying 3 sets of skis.  (And then there's that ever present issue of "You're completely out of shape" which makes waking up the mountain a non-starter.)  And again, let’s not forget, it is all about me. 

So we decided to try to walk down the side of the slope.  My daughter went first and began sliding and fell.  She didn't have the weight to break through the thick ice-covered snow.  I wound up carrying three sets of skis on my shoulders and walking through the snow & ice like the Tim Man breaking a foot path for my kids to follow.  What was the icing on the cake was listening to the snow boarders and skiers swishing by me and giving me the advice of a lifetime, “Hey dude, if you put the skis ON, you’ll get down the mountain a lot faster.”  The last couple I scream back at that it stopped being funny the 7^th time.

We finally all meet at the bottom of the chair lift that will take us to the parking level.  I do my best to act like nothing’s happened, but there’s silence and all eyes are on me.  It's like I've just dropped the winning touchdown pass at the Super Bowl.  I offer up John Candy’s classic phrase from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", the one right after he’s driven their car onto the highway going the wrong way and they narrowly miss being incinerated:                  "But we can laugh about it now." Nobody’s buying, it was a painful ride home.

Escape from Del Boca Vista

So were back in New Jersey from Del Boca Vista.  It’s Monday morning and I get up early “before the hacking” and make my escape back to Work...not that I didn’t have a great time with my family listening to grinding teeth and wondering when my turn at the clinic would come… but let’s not forget, it IS all about me.

I get in my jeep, drive down the street and notice the engine light is on.  I pull over and read the manual.  Says if the light is on, drive to a dealership for immediate inspection…can be a number of things from bad gas to a new transmission.  It says if the light is blinking, to stop immediately and call Triple A…or the engine could explode.  

I’m thinking to myself, “YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!”  This is just not happening!  Time execute Plan B…I will NOT be deterred, “I am going to make it out!”  I drive back to my house dust off my 1978 Raleigh 10 speed, fill the tires with air, throw it in the back of the jeep.

This is the same bike I dusted off two summers ago when gas was about $4 a gallon and I decided…after a couple of adult beverages, that I was NOT going to, “Pay the Man” any longer.  Instead, I’d ride a bike to the train station and stand up for what was right.  I went out and bought myself a $75 knapsack that holds a laptop and I was ready for action.  There was only one problem: From my house, the dealership is about 4 miles almost completely down hill…like very downhill.  It was great in the morning…almost too chilly.  But coming home at 7PM in the dead of summer, it was a completely different story going up hill.  By the time I made it back to my house I came about as close to dialing 911 as I ever have.  I developed a bruised sternum which I earned as my heart was working overtime trying to blast itself out of my chest.

You’d be amazed how quickly you can forget these things.  My rationale for giving it another try was: It's cooler now and I don't have the laptop strapped to my back.  That and I have the sound of hacking ringing in my ears…my kids have the flu now too.  (I’m extremely sympathetic)  So I drop the car off and start pedaling back up the hill for home.  Funny thing was (actually not so funny) as much as it was cooler out…the incline was still at about 45 degrees, and not surprisingly, I’m still in terrible shape.  The only way I could distract myself from the pain was by cursing myself out.

It only gets better.

So now it’s about 7PM, I’m home, and I’m going to go pick up my car.  Turns out only a couple of hoses were cracked, so I figured I got off easy.  Sure... the mechanic informed me that it appears I’ve been driving for a couple of weeks without brakes, so now $700 later…I’m ready for the road.

I let my wife know that I’ll just drive the bike back down and drive the car back…no big deal.  She tells me I’m crazy and that she’ll drive me down.  Sir Valiant insists that she stay home and get well.  I explain that I’ve driven down in the early morning hours when it’s fairly dark and I’ll be just fine.  I should have updated my will.

I was wrong.  It’s much darker at night…much much darker.

I head out of my neighborhood and notice that it’s kind of difficult to pick up the wide speed bumps in the road.  And this is with all of the houses having their front porch lights on.  I head downhill into blackness.  No street lights, big trees everywhere…can’t see 5 feet in front of me...going Mach9.

Now I’m cursing TARP.  With all the infrastructure improvements going on I have to think that as much as these roads are narrow AND they don’t have streetlights, they must have been repaved recently.   Wrong again.

You’d be surprised how scary a pot hole is in the pitch black when you hit it going 70 miles an hour on a ten speed.  What’s even more fun is that when people see you coming in the opposite direction they all have the same reaction.  They put on their hi-beams.  This by itself is completely blinding, but then when they pass, your pupils are the size of a pinhead.  So if you think you couldn’t see anything before, now you might as well be opossum.

Got home, after I stopped shaking I informed my wife she was right and we won’t be trying that again.

So in the morning I almost had a heart attack from exhaustion and at night I managed to scare the crap out of myself. 

It’s sad when you look forward to a commute into the city.

What I did on my Vacation to Del Boca Vista

On the plane ride down to Florida, my wife sat next to two major germaphobes.   They had the industrial size jug of hand sanitizer, the masks…the works.  They were problematic in that they were also having issues with other passengers in the seats in front of them.  The people in front of them were trying to change seats so they could sit with family members.  Even though it wasn’t affecting the germaphobes, they didn’t like it.  One of their comments that became the catch phrase of our trip was, “So, what, are we all changing seats now!?!”  We got a kick out of them and naturally came up with a variety of jokes about them.

"Judge not lest ye be judged" says the Good Book - and my wife says she will never be judgmental about germaphobes again.  The Wednesday afternoon we got down to Florida, she came down with the Flu.  Good old “H1N1.” 8 days later, she still had a fever.

"Once Upon a Mattress" - What made it even more fun is that my Mom's condo is…non-large (Lovya Mom).  We slept on a 30+ year old pullout couch…mattress.  While it was on the pull out frame the bar that stuck in your lower back was way too painful, so we just put the mattress on the tile floor.   My Mom had gone out and bought a blow-up mattress for my kids, but didn't realize that you need to charge the little electric blower for 12 hours before the first use (It won’t run if you just plug it into the wall outlet…we tried).  So...at 9 p.m., I wound up going door to door hoping to borrow another pull-out couch mattress from one of my Mom’s neighbors.  (Absolutely great fun making new friends with strangers well into their 80's, all in their jammers.  It was also indescribable fun finding the treasures that had accumulated over the years under the cushions - unfortunately, no money!) Of course, back home our pullout couch mattress is pristine, I’ve often thought of eating off it.

Mission accomplished, I dragged another mattress back to my Mom's place and now we have two-pull out mattresses next to one another.  All four of us are together, with my wife coughing all night long, and the kids grinding teeth.  And for whatever reason, older folks in Florida do not believe in putting air conditioning on...it must be a religious thing!  I’m lying there sweltering, thinking to myself, “Maybe I’m dreaming, could this really be happening?  Or maybe I died, and I’m in purgatory.”

Also my Mom's not big on TV, so there wasn't one to watch…which my wife really appreciated since she was too sick and wiped out to read or do anything else.

At one point I come up with a great idea.  I’ll take the kids to the beach… and escape for a while.  The kids wind up arguing at each other constantly…until my head exploded.  I erupt like Vesuvius, and explain that if either one of them opens their mouths again for the rest of the afternoon, the other will become an only child.

At this point I’m getting very depressed because I know my Mom does not keep alcohol in the apartment, and I’m too embarrassed to tell her I need to go out buy an economy size jug of vodka.  I’m thinking maybe I’d now qualify for medical use marijuana. 

Think we’re having fun yet?  It gets better. The day before we leave my daughter stepped on a fire ant colony. Next time I'll send postcards from the clinic. 

The Juicer

Health Tip of the Week  - Never Buy a New “Juicer”, immediately go out and buy $93 of fruit and vegetables, test out most of it in one sitting, and take your dog for a long walk.

We're not talking about the old one-amp unit from commercials of years' past.  We're talking about today's technology, a Quad Core 6.7 GHz Engine that can produce enough power to light up half of Scotland.

So the unit arrives and we rush out and buy what I believe is the required $93 dollars worth of fruit and vegetables to power the unit.  People at the King's supermarket thought we were crazy.  We get home and now the problem is:  Where do you store $93 worth of fruit and vegetables?  This problem quickly liquefies. As we get caught up in the excitement of juice-amania, we decide to try it all.  We're mixing carrots and apples and pears; blueberries, strawberries and pineapples.  Then, why not all together.  Then papaya, mangos and celery.  Then again, why not all together.  We’re having a great time with our new toy.  Eventually we finish.  At this point my molars are swimming and my eyeballs are orange, we're on a Major Juice High.  My wife looks at me and says, "Ya know, I think the dog needs to go out, and I don't think he's had a walk all day."  I think to myself, “I’m so juiced up right now, I’m probably like two steps away from becoming the Incredible Hulk…and I don’t need the Gama rays.  I could probably walk half way around the globe with all this healthy stuff running through my veins.” 

I grab the leash, and naturally being the good neighbor that I am, I grab a small blue doggie cleanup bag, just in case.  Only because I have a digestive track that will someday be donated to the Smithsonian…you would think that at the very moment I touched the blue bag that something would have clicked in my head,…but unfortunately nothing did, and I walked out the door.

So I get about 3/4s of a mile from my house and start to feel some pressure, unmistakable pressure.  I take a couple more steps and it hits me.  I’m in real trouble.   

The feeling was kind of like the movie "Training Day," where towards the end, Denzel Washington leaves Ethan Hawke, the rookie, with the gang members whose job it is to kill him.  They manage trick him into giving them his gun and when he realizes he's done, it was one of those terrible hopeless sinking feelings.

There’s now an unholy war going on in my lower quadrant.  Even the dog’s senses are on overload, I’m sure I’m imagining it but I could swear he was giving me a look that said something like, “What were you thinking and what just happened to the atmosphere?”

But like Ethan, under a lot of pressure, I decide not to give up.  The downside is way too ugly.  And I don’t want to have to move out of the neighborhood.

I turn and head home.  I'm making decent time, but mentally beating myself up the whole way for being so sensible about drinking more than my fair share of $93 of juice.   You see the rest of my family had enough with just part of one cup of each brew.  I naturally didn’t want this life giving nectar to go to waste, so I'd finish theirs.  I did cut myself some slack because at one point during one of the juicing experiments I almost asked my wife, "What do you think would happen if we put an onion in it?"

I'm getting close to home and thinking, "Okay, I can do this.  Just hang tough... real tough."  Then disaster struck.  I look ahead and see a neighbor coming towards me and he’s walking his dog.  His dog is a dog that mine really likes... which happens to be just about every dog in the neighborhood.  Our dog is a Golden Retriever, and if he weren't a dog, he'd probably be mayor.  My neighbor is a nice enough guy but can be kind of chatty.  Trying not to be rude (in more ways than one), I engage in what I hope is a short conversation of un-pleasantries.  At one point he looks at me and can see that a trickle of sweat is streaming down both of my temples.  He asks me, "Steve, it's 37 degrees outside, and you're sweating - are you OK?"  I tell him I probably have something very contagious coming on, and better be on my way. 

Of course as we get back to our yard, my dog decides he needs to go.  I look at him as if he's stuck a knife in my back.   In desperation, I throw the blue bag at him and tell him to clean up after himself. It's every man or dog for himself at this point.  I race into the house….

I’ll only say this, I’ve brought new meaning to the technical term “Systems Purge.”