the alps, darling

i just returned from a weekend skiing in the french alps with my friend john, who is a pisteur or patroller at chamonix. i hadn't skied in five years, so was a little nervous but ended up having an amazing time. although now my body hurts. nothing a shiatsu can't fix.

i've done the majority of my skiing in new england where the weather is cold, the trails cut down into thick forest and the verticals aren't anything to write home about. the alps are completely different -- there are no trails whatsoever except groomed bits that weave through the open snowfields. you can ski wherever you want -- even a closed section is yours to explore if you dare. another thing we lack in the east is powder; what they call "packed powder" is usually crusty manmade snow that gets skied off by the early afternoon. in chamonix although it hadn't snowed in days, the mountains were covered by fluffy bumps, making adventurousness an easier prospect. you are sure to fall, but it doesn't hurt.

my third day we skied the valle blanche, which is a glacier that comes down the side of mont blanc, the highest mountain in europe. this required no less than crampons and ropes but was the most backcountry terrain i've ever done. glaciers rose up on all sides to rocky peaks -- a larger-than-life landscape that resembled a postcard. i could hardly believe i was in it, let alone skiing down.

it seemed like everyone i met was over-the-top adventurous. if they weren't biking across south america with a parasail attached to their back they were scaling some ridiculous peak to ski down the other side. this makes me want to be more of a daredevil too. note to self: have more adventures. of the outdoor kind. i'm open to suggestions.

dream diary

my dream last night: i'm at a party at my mom's friend's house. at the party are some college friends, some madrid friends, a random assortment of people. so i'm walking around the party naked because of course. not only that, my teeth are falling out. actually, i was holding my earrings in my mouth and swallowed them by accident, and while trying to spit them out all my teeth were coming out with them.

i feel like my dream is a high school student's psych paper. kinda trite, no?

life #6

over a year ago i wrote a post about my swiss army knife, detailing its long history of disappearing and reappearing in my life. well, not long after i wrote that, sometime last spring actually, i realized that i hadn't seen the thing in a while. i wasn't too worried, trusting implicitly that it would turn up somewhere -- it always had in the past.

the first doubts surfaced when i was packing my room up before leaving for the states last summer. i was going through all my stuff, thowing things away, trying to keep possessions to a minimum as usual, expecting to find it in the back of a drawer or in the medecine cabinet or something. but no such luck. in august when i was getting ready for the camino, i sadly shopped for leathermans at rei, unable to buy one and admit that the knife might actually be gone this time.

when i moved back into my room i thought: "this is the last chance. if i don't find it now, it's gone." and sure enough, there was no sign of my friendly little gadget.

until a few days ago. suddenly inspired to pick up my winter habit of knitting i dumped my knitting bag all over my bed and there...there it was. of course. i use the scissors to cut yarn and the hook makes a great crochet hook in a pinch. and i haven't touched my knitting since last winter, even during the packing and unpacking.

so we are reunited, again! i'm wrestling with disbelief while simultaneously chiding myself for having so little faith. it was gone for almost a year though; this is its second-longest disappearing stint ever! it occurs to me that perhaps i'm subconsciously always "losing" the knife by trying to get on airplanes with it and not being able to find it in my damn bedroom because i enjoy this little ruse. but i dont think so, because you know what i enjoy even more? using the knife!

hooray! it's back! never leave me again!

yes

yes, i'm devastated....

that was an excruciating game. it's 5am, i'm going to bed

superbowl

a few months ago -- near the beginning of the football season -- i was watching the rugby world cup and i posted to say that i felt the pain of the fans of the new zealand all blacks. they were heavily favored to win, then seemingly choked in the quarterfinals. i said:

the patriots are just a little too favored, they're a little too good this year. they are set up to fail, to rest on their laurels, to believe the hype. and while i love my team and think they deserve to win this year, i know everybody else will be even more satisfied to see them lose.

yet here we sit, mere hours before superbowl. the patriots haven't lost any games since that last post.

i weathered the last few weeks in new york, hearing the haterade coming from all directions regarding my dear patriots. yes people wanted them to lose in october, but that was before the pats went out and racked up an unprecedented 16-0 record for the season, now stretched to 18-0 in the playoffs. basically, they beat the teams of all the haters -- sorry y'all.

but now the haterade is stronger than before, the recipe has been improved. everybody is so ready for this perfect season to have the perfect ironic footnote: 18-1, the 1 being a little game called the superbowl.

do i sound nervous? i'm not. we're going to pretend the giants have a chance and they do, albeit a small one. but the fact remains: anyone betting against the pats, in the post-season, after a bye week, with a healthy team is drinking some spiked haterade.

sniggle!

here is a video snippet from tami and my new years eve halftime show on ice. this piece was choreographed over several days and included many cutting edge ice skating maneuvers. unfortunately the only extant footage is of the finale. enjoy!