Mumbling Madly

The evening of our first day we went to a half pipe competition. I had foolishly forgotten my mittens and was not feeling up to dragging around my big fat snowboard gloves. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and bared it through the qualifying runs.

This was when I noticed, again, how international the crowd was. I think we were the only Americans there, the bulk of the audience yelling encouragement with Australian accents. The competitors were a mix of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealenders. We stuck around for about an hour before we froze. I noticed the huge popularity of sagging your oversized snowboard pants to the knees, a trend I found surprising. Certainly this wasn’t hugely popular when I lived in the mountains, and I doubt it’s simply a Canadian thing. Perhaps it demonstrates how much one will suffer for their art by allowing their ass cheeks to flap in the air.

We walked around Whistler Village, shivering and trying to stay warm.  I spotted a very cold cow outside an ice cream store:

Stay tuned….

Last Thursday we embarked on our much anticipated trip to Whistler–rated as the number one ski resort in North America. After teaching one little dance class for one little student we took off, (this student, when asked where she would fly if she could fly anywhere in the world, told me she would flap to heaven so she could visit her pet cat, Lucy). Our passports in hand it took us approximately one minute to enter Canada–we were at a more remote crossing station, thankfully avoiding the huge monstrosity near the city of Vancouver. We were amused and pleased at our quick passing into a new country, hurray for Canada!

After an uneventful trip, we arrived and experienced a huge brain fart at the check-in desk. We were with friends and for some reason Josh and I thought they were spending only three days in Whistler instead of four. We actually had to count down the days before reassuring the desk clerk (from Portugal) that we were all spending four nights and it was merely the long drive that scrambled our brains. Josh and I received the TINIEST room on the sixth floor–we confirmed this by checking out the floor plan on our emergency evacuation map. Our room was so small they bedside table was turned sideways and we were without a balcony–boo!

A large group of employees from Josh’s company (and their friends) were all under the same reservation at the hotel and we met up at a pub down the street. We were located in the quaint little Whistler Lower Village, a small town created specifically for tourists. Many of these folks were strangers to us, and after overhearing many accents from nearby tables I realized that our huge table had AMERICAN stamped all over it. Josh and I withdrew $100 in Canadian money–how cool–and were eager to toss it around. At one point, someone at our table asked us if we wanted a shot called the Redheaded Slut. We accepted and downed a pretty terrible shot of jager and a mess of other junk. Later, the same person informed us that it would be six bucks a piece for those shots. We exchanged meaningful glances and put down some cash: “Hey, what’s with the Canadian money?” Someone from the table jeered. Josh reminded them that we were in Canada and respectfully using their currency. “Oh, my bad,” he said apologetically. Nobody had bothered to exchange their cash and laid down American money–which the restaurant accepted and rewarded with a terrible exchange rate. I made a mental note to avoid any huge outings with said company.

The following day we hit the slopes and were greatly rewarded by speedy lifts and decent snow. I was having significant trouble with my bindings and adjusted them several times. I could not seem to avoid pain in the back of my left knee…I toughed it out though, and rode until the afternoon. There was one incident that occured on our first day that could have been disastrous, but is now merely a funny story. We were all lined up to get on the next chair, our boards poised and ready to slide out and on the lift marker when the lift operator suddently yelled, “Can you hold up so this little girl can get on before you?” Well, I was already halfway out so I furiously started backpeddling to the starting line. However, I wasn’t in time and the chair swung around and pegged me squarely in the ass. I fell flat on my face. When I struggled to get up, our friend Jill yelled, “NO! Here comes another chair!” Instead of stopping the lift, the operator had shoved the kid onto the chair that pegged me and allowed another chair to swing around and come at me. I immediately pulled the old duck and cover move, lying flat on the ground with my hands instinctively wrapped around me helmet. This has happened to me before, when I was learning, and usually the chair will go right over you and head on its merry way. However my free leg somehow got hooked to the chair and began pulling my leg into an awkward backward position. My body started to curl up like a scorpion and it felt horrible. I heard Josh yell, “OH NO!” he scooted out and knocked my near crumpled leg off the chair before loosing his balance and toppling on top of me. By this time the lift had finally screeched to a halt–all bells and whistles and emergency noises blaring. I pulled myself off the icy ground with a roar: I was PISSED. “Was it worth it?!” I bellowed. “Was it worth it to get that kid on the lift so I could fall all over the place?!” The lift operator gave me a flat apology, “Sorry, we had to get that child on the lift.” The Aussie snowboarders behind us backed me up and yelled to the lift op, “It was all your fault!” Even as I fumed I realized I was being a jerk and an asshole tourist but I was so upset I spat, “Goddam, that was scary! I almost lost a leg AND it was super embarrassing.” It’s important to note that the entire lift line was DEAD silent–a huge feat when you consider how crowded the place was. The lift fired up again, and I realized I just wanted to get out of there. As soon as the chair swung around I quickly sat on it, trying really hard not to cry. The lift operator spitefully said, “Could you not sit down until the green light turns on?” If I had been in my right mind I probably would have yelled something mean, but at that point way too much attention had been drawn to me and I only wanted to resume my day. While we accelerated up the side of the mountain, Jill and Josh got me to laugh about the situation. “Did I really duck and cover?” I asked, not even sure what events had transpired. Josh told me that when my leg got caught it looked really scary and we simply had to thank our lucky stars I didn’t break my leg. Later we reenacted it for Jill’s husband, with me and Josh playing ourselves and Jill playing the part of the two lift chairs.

Stay tuned for more pics and more details…

On the teaching front: I have received great feedback–largely due to the addition of a class I’ve began with 2 1/2 year old students. This includes parents saying they really liked how I handled their child. What I’m finding with this age group (which is greatly avoided at all costs by many teachers due to its challenging nature) is one needs more patience then ever imagined was possible. This involves me saying things over and over: “Please, sit on the purple mat and wait your turn,” “touch your nose if you’re listening to me,” and “no, no, I didn’t ask you to go yet, please sit down.” I say these three sentences probably twelve million times during this painfully long forty-five minute class. I ask an incredible amount from these two-year-olds for the first half an hour. Then the last fifteen minutes is a struggle. This is also the first class I’ve taught with chattering parents in the wings. The moms all come with a baby in tow or a very pregnant belly in addition to their squaking two-year-old. They are thrilled, relieved, exhausted, and stimulated by the company of other mothers. I am happy to provide them with a place to simultaneously talk and watch their burgeoning child. However, this makes the class EXHAUSTING.

What I’ve learned about this age group is that they are on stimulus overload. Their world has blown wide open and their little brains are receiving tons of new signals. For some they respond by running all over the place without a hint of restraint or understanding of the ‘rules.’ Others have many meltdowns which require parental support before ‘getting back out there’ and rejoining the class. (I had one little girl who was so enthusiastic she  peed on the purple mat…which was actually a compliment to me since it indicated her level of commitment overrided going to the toilet).  Some kids will be fine one moment and then a ghost of terror will cross their face and I can tell they are overwhelmed. Touching these kids is fine, and I find that I constantly put a hand gently between their shoulder blades to steady them. Usually I’ll squat next to each kid and say, “See Janey going through the tunnel? We’re going to wait until she goes through before it’s your turn…ready? One…two…three…GO!” And the kid, fully prepared, will roar through the tunnel like the lions we just pretended to be.

Josh and Hilevy are watching The Grudge downstairs. Now, as I’ve probably mentioned before I am a huge chicken and don’t ride roller coasters or watch scary movies. Does this have to do with my super sensitive nature? Perhaps…I tried to think back to my scary movie history and this is what I recall:

Way back, we’re talking four years old or so, my family watched the Sesame Street Christmas on Christmas Eve. I became extremely scared when Big Bird fell asleep on the roof while waiting for Santa Clause and icicles appeared on his beak. The following year I became very distraught over the last scene when Cookie Monster eats the tree. This probably merely offended my sensibilities, but I expressed this by woefully crying over the eaten tree. My parents took this as an indication that I would probably not be ready for Snow White–due to the scene in the forest when Snow White is lost–and kept me viewing nothing but PBS programming for many years. Therefore I grew accustomed to Mr. Rogers, Nova, and Nature in my youth versus He-Man or GI Joe. I watched a lot of old movies, such as Music Man and Sound of Music and even sat through many an opera with my father on the weekends.

The first movie I saw where I thought I might be a little out of my “fear league” was Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. This is the terrible movie about the couple who find a baby dinosaur in Africa and have to save him from being killed by poachers. Of course, the baby’s mom shows up and kicks ass at the end and everything is all fine and good. I watched this movie in third grade at my first slumber party. The whole experience was so traumatic it would be my last slumber party for five years (at 14 I decided I needed to tough it out and try another sleep over). It wasn’t just the movie, it had largely due to the group of back stabbing bitches that attended the party–culminated with a painful version of Sleeping Bag Tag where I was accidentally kicked. I know that watching a film with a lot of action and a mother dinosaur killing a poacher was the last thing my fragile spirit needed during my first night away from home. “It’s just ketchup,” another party-goer assured me. I watched through partially splayed fingers as the mother dinosaur tromped her way through the terrain only to capture a human in its jaws and hack the body in half (it should be important to mention that this was a gentle brontosaurus who had very unscientifically turned into a killing machine). Needless to say, the birthday girl’s dad had to take me home at 10pm. I didn’t make it. I wept from embarrassment in his trans-am as he drove the six blocks to my house. “You might be a little young for slumber parties,” my Mom consoled. “We’ll try again next year.” (Never, I secretly swore as I snuggled down into my own bed: I’m NEVER sleeping over again).

I have to say that there were a few other movies that frightened me but I eventually developed a tolerance for the scary parts. One of these movies was The Never Ending Story, which is just so excellent I couldn’t opt out entirely. I rewatched that movie with a bunch of kindergartners last year and I have to admit that the wolf-like creature is truly a scary character. I realized, as I watched is an adult, that I have ALWAYS closed my eyes during the scene where foxy Atreyu stabs the creature in the heart. Speaking of, let’s remember how much of an impact that character made on most of our young minds: I truly believe it was my attraction to Atreyu that kept me going through that movie–which we owned and watched repeatedly. I confirmed the acceptability of having a crush on Atreyu as a kid when Joey confided that he too had similar feelings. (Curious about where the actor went I did some browsing).

My Dad watched a lot of Dr.Who (on PBS of course) in the evenings and I occasionally watched with him. This was until I started having nightmares about box like creatures: My Mom banned me from watching Dr.Who for a little while. I know, even campy british sci-fi was too much for me at one point.

I remember watching Jurassic Park as a young teen and realizing that if I just closed my eyes during the violent parts (of yet another dinosaur eating people movie), I could make it through. I toughed it out and could brag that I had seen the movie. (”Remember the toilet scene?” “Oh, yeah!” I lied, “I loved that scene.”) This actually serves me quite well, and it’s a tactic I still employ. The more subtler movies like The Sixth Sense managed to truly terrify me–even keeping me from going into the basement on the night we watched it. Which asks the question: Is it the violence or the thrill that scares me? I certainly couldn’t stomach violence for quite some time. As soon as someone starts waving a gun around I immediately put my hands over my ears–which made Pulp Fiction unbearable. I always say that I must have been shot in a past life because gun play freaks me out so much. Violence isn’t so much scary as it is gross and disturbing. However, movies like The Grudge, The Saw, etc. are just too frightening. Why, even the opening credits for The Grudge made me nervous…and stuff jumping out at me? I’m a heart attack waiting to happen. Just ask Gina, we went on the Haunted Mine ride at Lagoon back in 99 and I screamed my heart out at every jumping ghoul and ghost. I ask you: What is the appeal of being scared? Why does one desire the experience of leaping half out of their seat? Am I just a big wet blanket? Is it something you get better at with practice? Am I missing out by not being enthralled by The Grudge?

In an attempt to do more as a couple and beat the seven year slump we’ve fallen into I’ve resolved to get Josh and I out and doing more. You know what I mean: it’s been seven years and sometimes you move past each other as if you’re roommates instead of wedded. For the first time our relationship actually feels like work sometimes. Sure, you go through several months, years, etc of the Honeymoon phase where you need absolutely nothing but your significant other and no one else will do. Then you lapse into reliance, fabulous co-dependence, and a state of constantly seeing each other at your worst. Maybe you get a cat to include in your tiny family–it certainly makes sense to have something else lurking around. Anyway, this blog post is largely about the various outings and excursions Josh and I have had lately:

First off the newly installed Olympic Sculpture Park is fabulous and I highly recommend everyone go check it out. I could bore you all with the details but let me just say we spent two hours cruising around and admiring all the do-not-touchable sculpture. Here I am with a gigantic log on its side in a custom made green house:

If I had so desired I could have picked up a magnifying glass and looked at little bugs crawling around the moss and learned about them. However, you can put the most beautiful park in the middle of a sketchy part of town and still run into crack smoking homeless people on the way back to the car.

We went to a dinner theater at a certain high school where my theater teacher from my youth now teaches. The set was beautiful, the kids were appropriately decked out in period clothing, the script was witty, and the food was awful. This high school is probably one of the wealthiest schools in the region, and Josh and I noted the feeling of whiteness and power that lay in the audience of parents and faculty. When asked who-dun-it Josh wrote his guess on a piece of paper and signed it “The Doctor.” This is a reference to a long running joke about giving one’s self the most pompous nickname possible. (Like if I decided everyone should call me “The Genius”). The actors had a young boy pick a piece of paper from the winning guesses out of a hat. The kid pulled out an entry and read, “Who-dunit: The Director. Why-dunit: Boredom. Who Guessed it: THE DOCTOR?” The audience chuckled, Josh slunk lower in his chair, and I immediately pointed to him and declared, “The Doctor is right here.” Josh took home a heart shaped box of candies as a prize.

On Friday we both attended a much needed company party at my work. The highlight was a karaoke machine that was wheeled into the lounge for our enjoyment. Josh did me proud by performing his patanted Operation Ivy version of “These Boots Are Made For Walking.”  He also agitated one of the owners with his hardcore rendition of Metallica’s “One.” (”Isn’t this song kind of loud?” She primly shouted over Josh’s guttural screams).
Not surprisingly, I stunned my co-workers with many rousing dance routines, a few break dance moves, and at one point–not sure which song or what context–I pretended to be a salmon swimming upstream. My boss said to me at one point, “I can’t believe how much energy and enthusiasm you have. Where is that sense of fun at the front desk?” And I looked at her incredulously and said truthfully, “It gets beat out of me.”

Points of interest:

Money might not bring happiness, but it certainly helps. As I continue to find myself in work situations where I am exposed to people with a vast amount of wealth, I struggle. Suddenly, I start to want the fancy comforts of life, like first class plane travel to far off destinations and sushi dinners. Let’s not even bring up my disgusting addiction to high end labels and fancy shoes. Coming from a very decent middle class upbringing it’s not like I was subjected to the harshness of poverty–therefore giving me the unrealistic passion of immediate wealth. You won’t find me embarrassing myself at an American Idol audition with my poor teeth and hoochy top in the hopes of getting a ticket out of my small town. I fully understand the need to work hard in order to get a bite out of the American pie.

But what happens when you work hard and yet the pie never rewards you? Some folks are just lucky…meaning they invented something at the right time, met the people and made the correct connections, or perhaps even succeeded on sheer talent. I understand that there are a million really fabulous actors out there who go unrecognized, and it was luck that placed Leonardo Dicaprio at the top of the Titanic casting call. (I hate that movie, but it’s true it launched his career).

When I was 20 I ate nothing but bean burritos and yogurt. I had cold cereal for dinner. I packed my lunch every day and ate it at the library at the UW campus while reading periodicals about fashion. I went out on dates for the free dinner, (I know, that’s terrible to admit…if it helps, I didn’t really go out on that many dates). I felt like I would never need anything material, just adventure and experience. My end table was a cardboard box with a bedspread over it.

When I was 23 I saved up money so I could go to Europe. It was all about gaining experiences, right? So, of course a solo trip to Italy was in order. The time came to plan my trip and my car broke down. I had to either replace the car or go to Europe. I knew I had to buy a car in order to make money so the trip was pushed aside. I’m still saving.

I work with a girl who is infinitely unhappy. She called up a client to request more information regarding a birthday party. The woman said, “I wouldn’t have a birthday there even if hell froze over.” She then ranted and raved about how much she hated our business establishment without applying the usual, ‘if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all.’ In fact, she went as far as to say, “If your business is trying to cater to upper middle class people like myself, you’re not succeeding.” When I was retold this I was shocked: Who uses the word upper middle class in conversation? Or during an outburst? Really, how could she be so crass?