We've had a most remarkable heat wave here recently. Like over 85 degrees the past 3 days! It's rarely that hot in the summer, let alone the tail end of March.
Today was a little cooler and a little cloudier. I'd had such a bad week that I wanted to take it easy today, except for the boys' activities. We've given up on Katrina's dance classes, she's just not into it.
Julian is motivated in Kung Fu though, and his new white belt status puts him in a different part of the class. They learn sequences of moves that are beautiful, like choreography. I watch this with envy and joy! This video is Julian learning the last 4 positions in a longer sequence that he practiced again and again all afternoon.
This Kung Fu is a good thing.
After Kung Fu, it was time to get Gabriel to his first soccer game. This is his 3rd scheduled game, though first actual game -- the first two were rained out.
Though soccer is more interesting to watch, I found myself missing baseball. There was no Opening Day ceremonies, no celebrating new teams, no corny reciting of Little League statements, no national anthem, no corn, no tradition, no getting choked up. Just show up for the first game.
I brought Gabriel to the game half an hour early for practice, then left just before the game started. A week of single-parenthood has turned the grocery-shopping situation urgent. I left Julian to watch the game and dashed Katrina off for a quick trip to Trader Joe's.
I returned to watch the last 10 minutes of the game, where I saw Gabriel as goalie again. His team was better than the other team, so most of the action was at the other end of the field. At times he seemed so bored he was just playing with the net.
Julian and Katrina meantime played on the long jump course.
The game ended, and apparently Gabriel's team had won, 8-2. Gabriel's coach told me he'd wanted to be goalie the whole time.
Gabriel told me he'd done very little as goalie, because his teammates were so good and most of the action was at the other end of the field. I asked him why he wanted to be goalie the whole game, and didn't get much of a coherent answer. He said neutrally that the other kids on his team were "bigger" than he was, but when I pressed, it seemed the real problem is that he knows they're much better than he is. While he needs the peg-taking-down, I told him that he won't ever get better unless he actually plays! Gabriel being Gabriel, he seemed unfazed by it all, but I was disappointed. He's wimping out by hiding at the goalie post. An important one, to be sure, but not for the whole game.
I don't know .... while he likes the physical action and competition of soccer, I'm not sure he's up to the teamwork and skills development he needs to keep up with his teammates. I hope he is. This could be a valuable experience for him. And it's pretty boring to watch your kid in a game when all he's doing is standing around!
I spent the day in a fog, barely smiling, still semi-traumatized by work this week. It was one of the worst weeks my group has ever had. For me it was capped off with a humiliating one-on-one with my hated boss (not my immediate boss who I like a lot), who smugly forgave me for my past "insubordination."
Insubordination. Can you imagine? We're talking Silicon Valley engineering here, not the Japanese military. What could in American company culture could possibly constitute "insubordination?" Apparently "I think this software product's Java interface is outdated" and "Let me be clear -- I'm not negative on the project -- I just think it won't suit our needs" qualifies.
It's hard to explain, even to myself, why I can't just shrug this off. I'm haunted today, even a Saturday, with the incredibly uncomfortable and stressful experience to be alone in a room with someone who has total power over you and other people you care about. It won't happen again. It's very clear that it's time to leave. But today, I still have to shake off the fury of having had to sit and fume and be insulted, or quit my job then and there. I don't back down from confrontation, but apparently I don't embrace it either. Standing up for myself could only have been done in one way: "F*** you, I'm out of here." I'm increasingly angry with myself for not having done the only right thing. I wish I could put this behind me, but the very passion that is key to my doing well at my job torments me when I'm not on it.
Tomorrow: go the Y, work out, and ground myself again in what's truly important.
If I were president, I would change three things. First, I would give more homework. Homework helps students learn. Next, I would make jails stronger. It would be so strong that a hammer coudn't break it!! Last, I would change old doors to new doors. Clearly, I would make a good president.
He isn't president, but he is a white belt now!
"Horse stance." Looking pretty serious!
I love kung fu. The fraternal separation is completely worth the logistical headache, which is pretty minimal now that I can leave Katrina at home with Gabriel (if she wants that is). I just wish I could take it myself!
Today was proving to be my most challenging day as a single parent -- Gabriel had soccer practice 5pm-6:30pm, and this was also the final night for him to practice his poetry book report. If he didn't do all his homework at the CDC after school, we'd be screwed.
Fortunately, Gabriel did do all his homework at the CDC. And fortunately, our previous practice with the poetry report made our practice pretty easy.
That's about all good I have to say about the evening. It was still a ton of work and running around, including when Gabriel left his backpack behind at the CDC and I had to go back to get it.
And then, soccer practice ran over, as it always seems to. I've been advised by parents who know, that you just pull your kid out if it runs late, too bad. That's a lot harder when your kid is the only goalie! Katrina and I waited, and mercifully Gabriel's scrimmage ended around 6:45.
I was dismayed to see that he wasn't running constantly like the other kids (goalies wait a lot), but he made some pretty good saves, despite being the shortest kid out there, and he seems to think goalie is a spot of privilege. The coach lined all the boys up afterward in height order, to hand out jerseys, and Gabriel was indeed the shortest. Not that he cares or notices.
Gabriel in his new soccer jersey.
Now Katrina says she wants to do soccer, and tried to show me how well she runs.
I'm SO ready for this day to end, but I need to get to work.
Brutal night, again. We had no chance to practice Gabriel's poetry report, because he had a TON of homework. His math was no fewer than 27 division problems on one page, all to be "checked," meaning re-multiplied. And that was just one page. The backside of the page had yet more work.
Then there were the 10 definitions he had to write, which another parent pointed out can take about 3 minutes per definition. Gabriel struggled and fussed and complained before dinner, getting some of it done, but had a much better attitude after dinner and tackled it all for real. And then it took him an hour and a half to finish. And we're supposed to work on his poetry report this week too??
This is really, really too much. But I'm too tired to write to his teacher now.
Dave's job had to pick a week in which a book report is due to send him to a conference in Urbana, Illinois. Though we've been working on this report pretty much every day for weeks, it's still crunch time this week. It's due Friday, but they have a field trip Friday so it ends up being due Thursday, and he has soccer practice the night before. So we (we?) really need to finish it this week.
This poetry report includes picking a poem, memorizing and reciting it, and writing it on a poster. Then they have to answer a questionnaire called "Poetry Potpourri" about what you liked about the poem, images it brings to mind, things like that. Then there's an outline they have to write up. Finally, from the questionnaire and the outline, there's the actual 5-paragraph essay they have to write. In addition, there's the A-B-A-B poem that they write themselves -- in class thank goodness, but the final "published" version is done at home. Plus the rehearsals for the presentation of the essay they wrote, and the two poem recitals.
This project had a lot of steps, no wonder we've been working at it for so long! (And this time I bought two poetry books so we have to compete for poetry books at the library or worry about return dates.)
Tonight we finished up the poster (Gabriel wrote it all but I still had to direct him what to do and help him with some gluing), and rehearsing the presentation. Gabriel's articulation has gotten pretty poor, and we really need to take him to have his hearing checked again. So getting him to enunciate and speak clearly takes some practice.
Then there are other challenges to presenting.
Gabriel's in-class written poem, called "I want a robot."
I recorded the poem he memorized, called "My brother shaved his teddy bear" by Jack Prelutzky, and his essay, but frankly they're pretty boring even to me.
Not to mention the homework Gabriel had tonight, including writing his 25 spelling words 4 times each, and some long math problems. I didn't even glance at his homework, I was just too overloaded.
Then Julian. He was pretty good tonight, doing his homework without complaint. After dinner, he and Katrina happily ran upstairs together so he could give her a bath!
I had to interrupt him from reading her a story however, when I read his "Go Home Book," with daily behavior reports from his teacher. I had to have a very stern talk with him for his relentless pestering of a classmate, today which included a smack on his friend's rear end and Julian getting sent to the office.
Julian's pestering and messing around and disobeying are really, really a problem, at home, at school and at the CDC after school. He's not bullying, he just wanders around the classroom, drags his heels, makes stupid excuses, goofs around, then focuses his attention on his friend and pesters constantly, disrupting the class. I really don't know what to do about it, and his teacher seems pretty fed up too. He whines and complains when I take things from him, but he can't apply the lesson the next day.
Maybe what Julian needs is 2nd grade and its 6 book reports. Oh joy. I can't wait.
Today we had no hard commitments, so I planned to make some headway on our taxes. But it wasn't raining all day for the first time in a while, and I'd rather do just about anything than taxes, so I spent a little time in the garage doing some much-needed cleanup and giving away of baby toys.
Katrina enjoyed the better weather too.
Borrowing your brother's skateboard stuff is a lot easier when one brother is on an emergency playdate (Lance's mother needed Julian keeping Lance busy almost as much as we needed Julian not pestering his siblings!), and the other brother is procrastinating his book report. Gabriel spent the entire afternoon indoors to do a few jobs on his poetry book report that should have taken him an hour if he'd just done it. As it was, I was rushing him to finish those tasks after his bedtime, when he lollygagged around for an hour at a time.
I guess it wasn't all lost time -- the only entertainment he had was reading the poetry book. At least his skateboard saw some action!
Julian had his Kung Fu "belt test" today. In Kung Fu, they start off with "no belt" and then take a belt test -- that we pay for -- to move up. The belt test started with a warmup, then each group of current belts (or no belts) went through exercises they do in class on a regular basis. Another "no belt" kid older than Julian was crying and wouldn't join the big group of mostly more advanced kids warming up. We sure have our issues with our boys, but crying and being intimidated isn't among them.
This place's communication is quite poor, so I couldn't figure out if Julian passed or not. "Oh just pick up his belt next week" was the best information I got. I think he passed, bringing him up to a white belt.
Julian still seems to like kung fu, and I really really like it. I wish I could do it myself!
And it's a great way to split the boys up for some of the day. They have really, really been awful together, constantly fighting and causing problems, provoking and pestering each other, always blaming the other. Last night they were at sleepover, and Tonya, who can handle anything, also said they were horrible, and had to put Julian on timeout many times. I'm starting to wish there were a way for them to have separate rooms, but I know they'd still fight bitterly.
Today I got to experience "following through" with an instruction to an extreme. The CDC had a "summer kickoff" party today, to which I brought all 3 kids. Katrina went straight for the snow-cones, but refused to say thank you after being handed a yummy-looking green one. She even dared to say "I'm too young to say thank you!" I insisted, she refused, then I told her that I'd take her home if she didn't say thank you. I never thought I'd have to follow through so far as to taking her home, but I did. Once I've made the threat, I have to execute, annoying as it is. I left Julian and took her home, screaming her head off, and sent her to her room where she screamed at the top of her lungs and threw things for 20 minutes, until I went back to get Julian.
After the boys had lunch at the CDC, I had a great time playing foosball with them on the CDC's foosball table -- and Gabriel beat me! I'm off my game. We need a foosball table, I think it's a blast.
"Mommy, I want to go to a NEW HOUSE!" Katrina exclaimed on the way home from school today. After some probing, I found that this NEW HOUSE would also come with NEW DINNER and a NEW MOM.
"A new Mom?!" I asked her, feigning horror. "What's wrong with me?" "Nothing," she answered, "but I want a sister!"
Yesterday I was talking with my sister on the phone, and she educated me that "Singapore Math" is not a crunchy-granola math approach at all, where did I get that idea?
Though most home-schoolers do so for religious reasons, perhaps I was fooled by the Web sites and other things I read that indicated that the non-uber-religious homeschool set (the crunchy 10%) liked Singapore Math because of its alternative, visual, non-"rote" approach. My sister explained that it does certainly include some memorization and repetitive learning, which I guess all math learning has to have some of.
Today I ran into one of my favorites Dads that I've met through this crazy parenting journey. His son and Julian were pals in preschool, and now this Dad is back at TLC preschool for his daughter. He told me today that he's homeschooling (yes, you read that right, he is homeschooling -- first Dad I've ever heard of who homeschools!) his 1st-grader, because he felt that his local school was teaching at too low a level, especially in math. He said in kindergarten, they did practically no math at all, like addition and subtraction. Personally I'm fine with that, though it can set you behind for first grade. Then he added that his family is considering moving into the Cupertino school district, and I briefed him on my opinions on that.
Moments later, I ran into a mom who works at an elementary school, but isn't a teacher, and doesn't have a kid in school yet. Her oldest is Katrina's age and entering kindergarten. She told me about an online math curriculum ("GG math" or something??) that she seemed to think was great. It also promotes visual learning, demonstrating concepts through colorful blocks and such, and that the kids don't need parents to read instructions since it guides them through the exercises.
She was probably taken aback by my reaction, which wasn't supportive at all. Any homework that demands computer time from elementary kids would irritate me to no end. Why can't that visual conceptual learning be done without the bright screen and colors? It also doesn't scale up to 3 kids. She said it was just 20 minutes, but that's assuming they're focused for that whole 20 minutes and don't wander off and Web-surf for Nerf guns. With all 3 in school, they're all 3 supposed to take turns for 20 minutes on the computer? NO THANKS!! Or get their own? NO WAY!! We're talking little kids here!
I'm no teacher, so what the heck do I know, but I hate the idea that you have to resort to screens to get kids to pay attention and learn. Even if it works, my gut says it's a net loss with a major long-term downside. Sure, typing and Powerpoint are handy tools (just like the Basic simulator "Quite Basic" that Gabriel was using yesterday), but they should never be the centerpiece of any curriculum. If there really is no other way to teach something -- who wants to do Powerpoint on paper? -- then teach it, but "visual conceptual" math learning doesn't need a computer application, and the computer can easily distract from the point. Computer science is different -- teach that, fine. But that starts on paper, with binary arithmetic.
I sure wish my home-schooling Dad friend had been there to hear the Mom's description of this online visual math learning program. I think he comes more from the Tiger-Mom school of thought than the "visual conceptual learning" place, though it seems most parents light up at the idea of "online learning." Dave and I, both Silicon Valley engineers by trade, lean heavily Luddite on this.
To calibrate, here's a sample of Julian's first-grade homework from last week.
And a sample of Gabriel's math homework from last week. He also does word problems and filling in charts and boxes, the visual abstract stuff, which he hates.
This was all so much easier 40 years ago when I was learning it! Or was it??
There are Web sites for everything these days, including computer programming. Anyone remember that? In my day, being "tech savvy" meant that you understood how to write programs, not download apps.
This Web site Quite Basic is a Basic language simulator, mostly for nostalgia. Turns out, it's decent for teaching kids too.
For some reason, Gabriel spent his rainy-day indoor time at the CDC this afternoon writing a Basic program.
He was very motivated to test it out on the Quite Basic Web site, so we had a rare night in which he did everything asked after being told only once. He'd already done his homework at the CDC, so I had him work on his March book report, then he had dinner with no fuss, took his bath and got ready for bed. Computer time around here has to be earned, and he earned it, so he spent the rest of the night on the computer testing his program. (He didn't want me to scan it because it has mistakes, but I did anyway, sorry dude.)
One could make a strong argument that a decades-long obsolete computer language has no practical application as compared to setting up a ring tone on an iPhone or drawing in Powerpoint, but you won't convince me. This is "tech-savvy," and this is the basis of actual computer science -- not Web-surfing or drawing in Powerpoint.
Another wonderful rainy day -- perfect to stay inside and catch up on things around the office (taxes, scrapbooking, blogging, taxes...).
Instead, I slept late for the first time in weeks, made breakfast, and then got Julian gathered to go to Kung Fu. He's really been a pain lately. Anything we ask him to do turns into a major ordeal, having to repeat ourselves or having him answer in a screaming shout: "WHAAAAAAAAAT!" So getting him out of the house was a good thing.
When we got home, despite my sleep-in this morning, I was overwhelmed with intense fatigue. I couldn't even stand for long without starting to rock and feel like I was going to keel over. Somehow I managed to stabilize the boys by setting Julian up with some activity downstairs, and Gabriel was absorbed in Bey Blades upstairs, and Katrina is never a problem if her brothers aren't pestering her, and took a long nap while Dave did yardwork. Yet I'm still groggy and lethargic and out of it. It feels like a migraine without the intense pain (yet) because of all the sleep, but all the other symptoms are there.
The IRS won't accept that as an excuse though. I've got to get my business taxes, our personal taxes, and Dad's taxes done, migraine symptoms or not. But not today, apparently.
Gabriel's first soccer game was rained out, so that left the afternoon free to do...something! My friend Cindy had suggested ice-skating, and just mere mention of it is enough for me.
The boys were so-so on the idea at first, but were fine on the ice. Katrina was very excited to go, but typical of her, as soon as we got out there, she was reluctant and fearful. I kept thinking back to one of her ski instructors saying, "She has such a good attitude!" Not now!
Katrina insisted on hugging the wall at first, then later insisted on holding my hand. After we'd inched our way around the rink once, suddenly she got it and her commands shifted: "Hold my hand! Hold my hand! Hold my hand! Stop holding my hand!" She did great once she lost the initial resistance. All kids respond to a pretend race, like, "OK, you know the rule: No going faster than Mom!" and then she giggles and tries to go faster and I say, "Heeeyyyyy! You're going to make me cry!" and she laughs even more.
Skating "with" her friends Emily and Dylan was tough though. Everyone's at their own pace and has to hold Mom's hand, and every kid has their own challenges. I was happy to see that Katrina could get back up on her own, but then Dylan zoomed right by us, totally getting it. Kinda hard to skate with your friends when your skills are so diverse!
Julian ran into a friend from the CDC there (a 3rd-grade girl) and pretty much dogged her the whole time, stopping by Katrina often, to her vocal disapproval.
Gabriel skated around and pestered Julian mostly, though stopped often to check on Katrina and help her. The only times I got to try skating without someone hanging on me was when Gabriel helped her.
A photo of all three was tough, let alone one of all three standing up.
More rain predicted tomorrow. This makes me want to go to the mountains and ski! Well, skating is a reasonable compromise until ski season starts again next year.
Not a good pickup day at the CDC. Two separate teachers pulled me aside to tell me about Gabriel's offense of punching Julian in the back, apparently unprovoked. Both teachers, both new, said they've realized that they've got to keep them apart. The girl minding Gabriel's group expressed the now-familiar bafflement and frustration that he doesn't react to their standard threats as expected. "I warned him I'd talk to you, but he didn't seem to care at all!" Uh-HUH. Yup.
Loading them in the car, Gabriel seemed especially dour and serious and said only grave things like, "This is the worst day of my life." Maybe the teachers did get through to him, or maybe he was blue about missing dessert (any trouble at the CDC is an instant no-dessert consequence, just to start).
When we got home, I told him to go spend the rest of the evening, except dinner, in his room. He was braced for a big fight, but then I told him calmly and seriously that I was really disappointed -- I'd been looking forward to spending some time with him.
To my amazement, this changed his demeanor dramatically. He almost started to cry. He said, "But Mom, I just want to be with you."
I didn't know how to handle this. I hated to break his heart, but really, he needed a severe consequence -- and to keep him apart from Julian. It seemed obvious that he might just be playing me, but that's just not Gabriel. He's no actor. He was sincere. I'm sure he knew that'd help get him out of it, especially as compared to his usual belligerent approach. And it did -- I "let" him stay in the office and work on his poetry book report instead.
Meantime, Julian had been kicked out to his room for scratching Katrina's face "by accident." So the boys were apart all evening until bedtime. All this meant was a lot of pent-up pestering, like a capped volcano about to explode, and it did. They immediately went into their hysterics mode, something between fighting and playing and laughing. There is no way out of besides crying or total separation. I opted for the latter and put Julian to sleep in my room.
It occurred to me as I was tucking him into my bed that this is a fairly frequent occurrence for us. How many other parents have to split their kids apart just to get them to sleep -- on a regular basis? How many other parents get talked to by the childcare workers about their kids fighting, playing, pestering each other -- on a regular bsis? How many parents instinctively jump up to put their body between their sons when one of them stands up from the dinner table to go get the parmesan cheese?
I do love my boys, but there must be a way to find more peace between them!
Our last ski trip of the year! Thank goodness for a "staff learning day" on Monday -- meaning, no school -- giving us a perfectly-timed non-peak 3-day weekend to go to the mountains.
Friday March 11
Dave and I took Friday off work to pack the car and pick the boys up a little early from school. Usually preparing for a trip doesn't include replacing the car's axle, but today it did.
The plan was to leave super early to avoid traffic. That plan failed completely. Two accidents, including one which closed two lanes, placed us perfectly in the midst of Sacramento rush-hour traffic. Then we reached our dinner destination in Auburn at the peak busy time. Lines, waiting, stop-n-go, for hours. Ugh!
We were very relieved to arrive at our rental condo on Donner Lake in Truckee, and were focused on getting the kids right to bed for early ski school tomorrow.
But....what's this? The master bed wasn't made. Sheets were strewn on top of the washer. No toilet paper in one of the bathrooms. No lights in the kids' rooms or the kitchen. No electricity in the kids' rooms at all actually, and the fans to send heat downstairs from the gas furnace weren't working. Garbage in the garbage can, half a papaya in the fridge...what's going on here?!
We were stunned. The place wasn't ready for us!
Dave called the emergency contact number -- voice mail box full. Then he called the condo's land line to find the inside phone, since cell service was pretty much only outside -- number disconnected.
Are we in the right place??
I went outside and left two frantic messages for the owner. Meantime, Dave got through to the maintenance contact person, who was very blase about her voice mail box being full. She told Dave she wasn't expecting anyone until March 17. That would explain the note she'd left on the fridge for previous renters apologizing that the place wasn't ready for them, as well as the electrical and plumbing (plumbing too?!) problems.
But now what? We had to get up early, and the kids should have been in bed hours ago. If it were just a matter of cleaning, we could deal with it, but there was no way to heat or light the kids' rooms, and almost no light in the kitchen, plus plumbing problems, and who knew what else.
The one thing that worked was the wireless network, so we used our new little Netbook to find a room at the Hampton Inn on the outskirts of Truckee. We repacked the car and bailed to the hotel. The kids were really tired when we arrived. And I was intensely anxious about what to do for the rest of our trip.
At the hotel, we hustled the kids into bed. It was immediately clear that a hotel absolutely, positively would not work. How could they play outside in the snow? What were we supposed to do after we got back from skiing? How can I make popcorn and hot chocolate and brownies? I hate hotels with kids. No way. We had to find a house.
Plan B: I sent a bunch of inquiries to other vrbo.com rentals. Most were in the huge Tahoe-Donner development, that I'd originally ruled out because they were a little far, but this time we were in no position to be choosy. Usually vacation rentals are arranged weeks ahead of time, but I had to hope someone would get back to me quickly. Or that another great idea would come to me. Occasionally that happens.
Saturday March 12
While everyone had breakfast in the hotel lounge, I checked email and sent out two more inquiries on vrbo.com. No answers yet. We packed up and were on the road at 7:45 on the dot, perfect. I tried not to think about the bags of food in the back of the car.
Incredibly, the ski school building wasn't crowded, and the usually grueling process of getting kids fitted for rentals went smoothly. Sugarbowl makes this a lot easier than Sierra-at-Tahoe, because they have a roomy dedicated building to kids' ski school, including their rentals. And everyone is very helpful and informed and tells us the same thing. This is why we came back to Sugarbowl.
Once the kids were handed off to ski school, it was time to face our housing dilemma. I had slept very poorly and was already exhausted and frazzled and filled with resentment that we just couldn't happily go ski now. It was all I could do not to burst into tears repeatedly.
I called the condo owner, but no progress report on the place. He was very apologetic and understanding, but still, it's clear he's had management problems before and should have taken care of them.
Then, a most amazing wonderful thing happened.
Dave played me a voicemail from one of the vrbo inquiries I'd sent out that morning, less than two hours ago. This man said it sounded like we were a nice family in a jam, and his place was available, though perhaps expensive for just one night. One night? We needed it for two. After some phone tag, we got through to him and he said he'd hold it for us for the 2nd night if we needed.
We decided quickly: we needed. We called him back right away and said we'd take it.
That's when I really fell down in tears -- of relief. This man was so kind and reassuring. "Don't worry, you have a place to go now, and you'll love it. Please enjoy your day skiing." He gave us the address and lockbox code without having any way of knowing if we were just high-end scammers! We told him we'd figure out payment as soon as we got settled in to his place that night.
I knew there were much more horrible things going on in the world (Japan suffering a massive earthquake and tsunami for instance), but in our world, this was a really big deal. Thank goodness. We were set.
We went to go get Dave's ski rentals and our lift tickets. On the way, we caught sight of Julian starting off on the bunny hill.
Finally, I could feel the tension easing when we loaded up on our first lift. This is what we're here for!
I'd told Dave that we'd start on Trailblazer, Sugarbowl's easiest blue and the next step up from their nearly-flat bunny hill. He wanted an easy warmup and asked that I make sure I stay with him, not that I can do much. I assured him that he'd done this run last year and that it wasn't hard, take a look, it's....er...well, .... hmm, well, it's over there. Like, not where we're going.
We were on the wrong lift.
I turned around to see the lift base behind us. Oh yeah, there are two lifts right next to each other. I forgot about that. We're on the Mt. Judah lift, the one with all the NO BEGINNERS signs facing another way than where we went in. Oops. Wonder where this goes?
A snowboarder on our chair confirmed that there were no green runs to get down, and the blue runs mostly wind through terrain parks. One short black section, but you can avoid it. Sort of. Dave isn't usually one for strong words, but he had some for me this time.
I thought it was quite pretty at the top, if nothing else!
And it really wasn't bad to get down. A little confusing in spots (the signs didn't match the map, or "easiest way down" appeared to point into the woods), but our lessons at Sierra-at-Tahoe served us well. Dave fell a few times, moreso out of psych-out than anything else, but about halfway down, he regained his rhythm and made it down with no further incident. Later, in lessons, he'd ski this area many times with no problems -- it just wasn't what he had in mind for a warmup.
At least we weren't thinking about lodging anymore.
Dave and I had originally planned on the 10:30 group lesson, but our lodging crisis set us too far behind, so we had lunch and showed up to the 1:30 lesson.
I volunteered myself as a "Level 4" (out of 6), even though I didn't meet any of the Level 4 criteria: easy black runs, off-piste, pole plants. I wasn't even sure if I counted as "parallel turning" yet. I told the instructor I wanted to do all those things, did that count? He laughed and said they'd evaluate us first, "us" being the four lesson-takers who claimed to be level 3 or 4, including Dave.
On the way up the bunny hill lift, I caught sight of Katrina's lesson. Lah-de-dah, dum-de-dum, no problem. She's skiing!!
The short ski to the higher lifts revealed an obvious split, two for level 3 (including Dave) and two for level 4-ish (including me). Dave and I would each get semi-private lessons, yay!
The other guy in my lesson was a professor of veterinary medicine at Davis, a French man raised in Africa with a great sense of humor, and very willing to try things. Overall I was faster and more willing than he was, but we were a good match.
And we had such a great lesson. Our instructor showed us all sorts of exercises, lots of one-ski balancing, and took us to lifts and slopes I'd never been to. He had us go through terrain parks and ski over the big whoop-de-doos, some off-piste trails between woods, and even small rainbow and box jumps. I learned how to hold poles properly.
We did our first black diamond -- a short "easy" one, but still, a real one, and it wasn't bad at all! I felt like I'd made huge leaps as a skiier and was elated. What a way to turn a horrible, upsetting morning into an uplifting, thrilling afternoon.
No time to ski with Gabriel afterward though, and we were anxious to go find our new place. The kids had all had a great day, with never more than 2 in their class. I was especially delighted to hear that Katrina was really doing well -- cooperative, great attitude, athletic. Are we talking about my child?! Gabriel too had skiied a black diamond today, and Julian spent the day on blues.
Our new place was easy to find, and absolutely adorable. And with a garage! It was the most welcoming sight I'd ever seen. (summer photo)
The garage was also the only way in, because the front door on top of the deck was snowed in.
This place was absolutely wonderful -- charming, warm, inviting. I loved the kitchen, though its window's view was almost blocked by snow. Growing up in New York, I'm quite familiar with snow, but not truly deep snow like you get in the Sierras.
The kids went right outside to play, until it was so dark I had to insist they come in. Before dark, Julian came in once, freaked out by sinking in the snow: "It's SO deep, Mom!" No kidding, it was well over their heads.
Gabriel relaxed while I worked on dinner.
I was so glad to be "able" to cook! Usually I wouldn't say that being so tired and so frazzled that day. But I loved having a kitchen to spread out in and make popcorn and hot chocolate, and to defrost things, if not actually cook. I made rice krispy treats, brownies, boiled pasta, heated bread. What an incredible difference from a hotel. I was so, so grateful to the kind owner, and really amazed at our luck. All other inquiries I'd sent were either taken or didn't answer. Wow.
Sunday March 13
I had a private lesson scheduled for 10am on our 2nd day. The Plan had been that we'd take a lesson at 10:30 the first day, have some sink-in and recovery time before my private lesson the second day. Instead, I had almost no ski time between lessons, and I was really really tired from the first day's awesome afternoon lesson.
But I wasn't about to let that stop me. I met my private instructor as I was ignominiously detangling myself from a signpost that had somehow split my skis, then furthered his impression of me as a completely nincompoop when I had no coherent answer to his question, "Do you have anything in particular you'd like to work on?" How about not running into signs at a near-standstill?
Truth is, I mostly wanted to build fundamental skills that will open the entire mountain to me. Sounds trite, but it was true. I'm a shaky intermediate skiier, green and unseasoned. Oh yeah, and I'd really like to learn 360s (whirlygigs with your skis on the ground -- in the air will come later). I told him I like technical instruction, I'm not an intuitive natural learner, I need to be told exactly what to do and practice it a lot.
And he delivered. Lots of minute instruction, lots of exercises, lots of working on position. And a fun exercise to work on 360s, though I never succeeded in doing one. Next time! I got a little overloaded toward the end, but I felt again I'd made a huge leap in skill, had lots of "ah-HAH I get it" moments, and gained a ton more confidence.
I had my first real fall too, pretty much from a stop. I do that a lot, just topple over for no apparent reason. At least this time I didn't take out the instructor.
For some of the harder slopes, I found myself calling upon my motorcycling experience. Who knew? Motorcycling and skiing have little in common dynamically, but the fear factor is very similar. I have years and years of looking down (and up) at something and being terrified out of my wits and knowing I just had to do it anyway. This experience serves me well in skiing.
The only bummer about my lesson, aside from being drop-dead exhausted, was the increasingly threatening weather. The visibility was really dropping and our faces were pelted with heavy wet stinging snow. Skiing is a winter sport after all, but I sure hoped it would clear up tomorrow. We rode up a lift up once with another instructor, and they commented together about the extremity of the conditions today.
After I thanked my instructor profusely, I ran into Gabriel's lesson. He was the only kid skiing at his level that day, so he got a private lesson all day. No getting stuck with his "green" little brother to fill out a class!
I couldn't get much video, but I could see he was getting much more comfortable. He had thought poles would make him go faster, but it turns out they mostly just give instructors more things to tell him to do that he thinks he can ignore.
I met up with Dave for lunch, then we skiied a little together afterward, but though I was still really tired, I wanted to put some of my lesson time to work. Unlike at Sierra-at-Tahoe, there was no good place for Dave to video my attempts to go down tougher slopes without him committing to them himself, so I settled for a photo. I thought I was going down the same easy black diamond I'd done in yesterday's lesson, but this one turned out to be much more cut-up and mogul-y-er than I was ready for (Steamers). I had such a hard time that I had to stop a few times to regroup. Ick! Well, that sucked.
I went back up and found Donner's Way, the actual slope I'd been aiming for, and skiied it four times in a row. The weather was declining fast, and at the open exposed face at the top, it was really, really windy. I could stop with my arms out and the wind would keep me from sliding down.
Donner's Way (Sugarbowl's "gateway" black diamond) from the top.
My last time down, Dave and I coordinated so he could shoot video from the bottom. I was super psyched to see this, but dismayed when I saw how I throw my whole body around, despite all my instructors' best efforts to get me to face down the fall line (fast-forward past the first 37 seconds to see me at the top).
Reminds me of watching beginning swimmers: I want to say, "stop working so hard and just let it flow!" Easy to say from the bottom.
Dave and I went together to go pick up the kids. I wanted to ski with Gabriel, and Dave wanted to try skiing with Katrina, at least on the super-slow bunny hill. Unfortunately the only video I got of them was out of focus, too bad because Dave said later this was his favorite memory. Miss Resistant seems to totally take skiing in stride. Too bad she had a nasty nosebleed on the lift.
After attending to Katrina's nose, I went with Gabriel up the Mt Judah lift -- Dave's ill-fated first run of this trip -- and took some video of him coming down from the top. He's still short on style, but I'm super proud of how willing and enthusiastic he is.
I tried to take video of Gabriel on some terrain features, but unfortunately he'd told me the wrong side of this boundary and I was facing the wrong way.
Wasn't in a great position for this shot either.
Time to go! An attempt to get a shot of all three, but I can always count on one of them to rush ahead to ruin the shot.
At least Julian was a little more helpful.
Then it snowed that evening, a lot, but we were happy and cozy in our borrowed rescue house.
Monday March 14
You'd think we'd have learned from last year what it means when it snows the night before: add a lot of time to get out. And on a morning when we were checking out, we couldn't easily afford the time! No time to shovel the whole driveway, we just had to move the mounds in the entryway that the street plow pushed up. We arrived a little late, but the snow made everyone late, so we were OK.
I caught a hopeful glimpse of sun. But it surrendered to the clouds moments afterward for the rest of the day. I think this is the last I saw of treetops all day too.
I was totally psyched for fresh snow -- my own tracks! Dave had breakfast to recover from his morning work's shoveling while I eagerly went up the Mt Judah lift, tapping my skis impatiently to get to the top. Powder time!
Squish, slop, stop. Huh? What's going on here? I could barely move. My skis sank ankle-deep and I could barely turn them. All the fine motions I'd learned went unheeded. It was impossible to get going or develop any sort of rhythm. This is what everyone raves about?? What am I missing?
I went to the 10:30 group lesson, where the instructors straightened me out. No, this is not powder, it's some of the highest-water-content snow they'd ever seen. The backcountry instructor said it was "legbreaker" stuff, downright dangerous on the steepest slopes. Further, it was precipitating -- snowing sometimes, wet-snowing other times, flat-out raining other times. Eeps.
While waiting for my lesson to start, I caught sight of Katrina in her lesson.
I felt bad for her instructor -- it doesn't get duller than this! Katrina's instructor did tell me that she sure does like to talk.
To my surprise, on a Monday, there were more people there for lessons than on the weekends, perhaps because as of today, they're free for the rest of the season. My group was 3 women (including me), and we took straight off for the intermediate runs. I was happy to have the same instructor as I'd had for my awesome lesson on Saturday.
Our instructor used the tough conditions to to try to help us learn to ski through it. One woman in my group was slower and very afraid of falling, and indeed fell twice, which turned into a 10-minute operation for her to get back up. The other woman was a much better skiier than I am, and I really enjoyed skiing behind her.
While showing us an exercise in really bending our knees, I had a rare "click" moment. It was an amazing "swoopy" feeling, trusting the skis to dig in and hold me up, a little like in ice-skating. The instructor let out a "wowwww-WOW!!" when I got to the bottom, and I bragged like an overexcited 5-year-old: "DID YOU SEE ME!!" I was SO psyched. I got it! Edges!
Unfortunately it was impossible to feel that on the ungroomed runs, which was most of them where we were. We did my black diamond Donner's Way again, and it was a completely different place now. Cut-up, and with huge wells from snowboarders, a full-body effort to turn. It was too much for the less-skilled member of our group, who dropped out.
One last run up, and our instructor changed course, skillfully judging his smaller class. This time, we went through some glades, and then down into some woods -- "off-piste" skiing. I'd done this two days ago with this same instructor, and I was all for it. This was the best! It's pretty, it's challenging, it's not all that scary, it's technical. This is my new favorite kind of skiing.
We moved on to the terrain park and untouched areas, which twice grabbed my skis and pulled me down. Turns out, one of the things I'm great at is getting back up. Just do "the cockroach" -- lie on your back, put your skis in the air, straighten them out, roll over, set down!
A fine finish to a really productive lesson, but I was ready to dry out over lunch. Then during lunch, I caught sight of Gabriel huffing it over to the bigger lifts from the kids' ski school area, and I ran out to get photos. None good, my camera lens was fogged over from being in a very wet pocket, I discovered later.
Then I saw Katrina's instructor with Katrina and another kindergarten boy in tow! And really in tow -- he had to pull them. The heavy wet snow made the bunny hill SO slow that the instructor was actually pulling Katrina and her classmate down. So he figured he might as well pull them over to the slightly steeper slopes.
I guess that's a silver lining -- the nasty conditions meant that Katrina got to ride the big lift! She seemed thrilled.
Later, her teacher told me he took them down Pioneer trail to the bottom of the Nob Hill lift, where they got some hot chocolate, then navigated some other lifts to more greens, including one of my favorites, Harriet's Hollow.
The boys' teachers also told me they'd have gone on a much wider variety of runs today too, but for the bad conditions. Ironically, the heavy snow that kept the boys off the tougher slopes is what pushed Katrina's class off the flatter slope.
After lunch, I was determined to get as much as possible out of our last afternoon -- rain, snow, fog notwithstanding (Dave decided to lounge-lizard out the wet). I really, really wanted to tackle Mt Lincoln again, Sugarbowl's highest peak, after my exhilarating but tough trip up there last year. Should be much easier this time with all my new skills!
Approaching Mount Lincoln. Who turned out the lights?
Last year, I was treated to a dazzling view atop Mt Lincoln. March 14, 2010
This is what Mt Lincoln looked like this year. And I use the word "look" lightly.
Actually, this didn't affect the actual skiing so much, but it really affected navigation. I couldn't see signs ahead and in some cases couldn't see the trail far enough ahead to know what I was committing myself too. I had a horrible ski down -- it was so, so, SO hard trying to plow through the heavy snow. Every turn was a full-body effort, every moment a major strain to keep control. Form and technique all went out the window -- I was just trying to survive. Some improvement!
After that, I headed to the lower groomed runs to practice my fledgling technique. The clouds clung to even the lowest lifts. The "easy" black diamond I'd run 4 times yesterday was out of the question today.
I wasn't the only one sticking to the lower groomed runs -- I ran into Julian's lesson too!
His instructor was a great upbeat guy, I really liked him. He put up with, without over-tolerating, Julian's stupid messing around and falling on purpose. (That is REALLY REALLY annoying.)
Since Julian had an all-day private lesson today (as did Gabriel), Julian's instructor seemed ready for some grownup company, and welcomed me to tag along. I skiied ahead to get some video of Julian learning to turn with poles.
Sugarbowl changed their Level designations a little this year, and now all "Level 2" kids get poles. I don't know if that's good or bad, but Julian doesn't ski anything close to a "pole" level at most other places. On the other hand, it certainly seemed to focus his turning.
I followed them into the terrain park area, which was Julian's favorite. He likes "jumping," though I never saw him get more than a few inches of air, especially not today. Conditions were especially tough by now; we were all soaked and the snow was really really heavy.
It was fun seeing how much Julian had improved too, that made for a really fun last run. Still, because of the stinging wet snow, I was only 99% sorry when it was time to call it a day. Shift from ski mode to major logistics mode.
The plan had been to get everyone right into the car, in ski clothes, and drive for an hour to a dinner spot. But everyone's jackets were wet, so we had to do a little changing in the car. And to think, I almost left everyone's spare jackets at home! My jacket was wring-out-able soaked, and my shirt's sleeves were wet.
Car entertainment for us is still old-fashioned reading, staring out the window, and fighting with siblings. Thank goodness for the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book series; Gabriel read that to Katrina all the way to dinner in Davis: Sudwerk, a German brew-pub. Katrina threw a massive tantrum in the restaurant for the outrageous offense of having a kid-pizza set in front of her, and Dave had to carry her out screeching her head off. I am so tired of that nonsense, she is consistently awful in restaurants when we're travelling. Even her brothers outgrew that by age 3.
We got home with no further incident, dumped out the contents of the car, and zoomed the kids to bed. School tomorrow!
This was really a remarkable trip in so many ways. My memory of the joy and relief and gratitude of our kind savior with the beautiful house in Tahoe-Donner outweighs my intense anxiety about the lodging problem. Discovering so many new fabulous facets to skiing outweighs, mostly, the struggle with the super tough conditions on Monday. And it's always exciting to see how everyone progresses.
Once again, I'm lamenting the short duration of ski season and counting the minutes until the next one! November 2011, we're there!
