Double Blues

It was not cold today. I dropped a glove on my way out of the house, and didn’t notice until I was near the bus stop. I had to walk all the way up the hill to retrieve it, and missed the bus. Fortunately, Craig had a carpool. Someone came to pick him up to work and I hopped on too, so I still made it there by 8:00. Craig was fuming the whole way, which made it even better.

It snowed some, frozen ball-shaped hail-like snow that stung faces on the chairlift at one point. The runs didn’t get more than a light dusting of snow.

I was second position on double-blues today, because I promoted my returns from yesterday. It’s a big difference from blues, because these kids can actually ski blue runs without constant attention. My friend Marcelo was the lead for the blue zone and the last out on blues, so he didn’t even bother to put his ski boots on. He knew he wouldn’t go out. There were few kids today so I told Jonathan, who was on first position, to take the first six kids (including my returns) and go. I waited around until two more showed up. If it had been only one, they would not have let me work today. We found Jonathan and I took back my two returns from him so we each had four.

I also had to go back and get poles for Nicholas, the annoying brat I had yesterday. His father was displeased that they didn’t have poles in the morning, and the kid wouldn’t stop whining about them until I got him a pair. We skied around a couple of runs first to give them a chance to bring some up from the bottom. The father was also unhappy that his kid was not duly challenged yesterday and he wanted him in another group, until I explained that I’m on double-blues today and had given Nicholas the option of transferring to another class at lunchtime yesterday, which he refused. When he understood that, he apologized and said it was fine for him to ski with me again today. I didn’t get a tip from him of course, though I did everything to address his concerns.

The only new kid for me today was a girl who was described to me as a solid double-blue skier with confidence issues. She often reverted to a wedge when there was any place where I skied straight, and was timid about skiing anything that looked challenging. However, she knew that was her problem and tried to get over it. Before lunchtime I took the kids to Tombstone lift and made them all follow me off a “short cut” path on Red Pine Road, where it loops around. It’s just a short little chute between the two flat parts of the road but I described it as a “cliff” and had them ski almost straight down it to boost their confidence. They enjoyed it and asked to try it again later in the day.

The other kids I had included Kevin, the oldest of the three brothers I had a couple days ago. He paid attention, made no trouble, and skied properly, so I was very happy with him. He was among the first to show up and I made him go out with Jonathan for a first few runs until I knew if I would have a group to take out. He was anxious about that and strongly preferred to be in my group.

The last return I picked up from the other group was Lina, a girl from yesterday who could get out of her snowplow and ski parallel with a good pole plant, but most of the time did not want to. She was my slowest student today. I couldn’t see serious technique flaws, and eventually deduced it was a matter of incentive. She kept her skis together only after I promised we could go down Pinball Alley on the condition that I didn’t see any wedges on the way to there. Pinball Alley is one of the “natural half-pipes” marked on the map, off Red Pine Road run. Those are technically easy black runs because they are tight, bumpy spaces between trees, and never groomed. I picked up the idea from Jonathan to use those runs as incentives, because kids just love them. I also used another off the Pine Draw run called “Tunnel of Fun” as a reward for good behavior and paying attention.

Both of the girls were nine years old and became fast friends, so they had a lot of fun just from chatting together. I joked with them, and I found it easy to maintain a fun attitude all day with kids who could mostly ski parallel, and I could take to different terrain in the knowledge we’d make it back in time without mishaps. Nicholas crashed in the end of the Tunnel of Fun and nearly got run over (he hasn’t assimilated the concept of moving to the side of the slope) so he was rather pissy for a little while after that. I dealt with it within a run but I don’t remember how. I think he just forgot about it on the chairlift up. They all had a lot of fun by the end of the day and learned a little bit too. I worked on refining the parallel by moving pressure from foot to foot and integrating pole plants and edge use. I also taught side-slipping and took them to varied terrain: hardpack, crud, and even little bumps and soft snow when I could find any.

Fun tree runs make a good incentive for medium to high level kids, but I still gave them all candy at checkout time because I thought they made an effort to learn what I was teaching. Two of the parents gave me tips. They might have realized by now that I do not look at the bills they give me before putting them away and saying thank you, so they gave me stacks of bills which were mostly singles and fives. I think altogether it was $30 today, but I counted and I have a little more cash than I had accounted for. My wallet is getting pretty thick with paper. Last night I wrote Josh a check for this month’s rent, but I may start paying for things in cash again. Last month, the tips I got exceeded half my actual salary.

After work I went up Saddleback lift for my run down Elk Ridge. The lift stopped about a foot from the top, and I noticed Scott was on duty up there. We thought it was hilarious; it would have made a good practical joke if he’d really stopped the lift there as a prank on me. I got down to the lift again exactly at 4:00 when it was about to close. The liftie down there hurriedly waved me in so I could get another run on the lower part of The Pines.

Tomorrow is my first day off in about two and a half weeks, and even though Star Bar has $1 drinks tonight and I won’t have another Saturday off work, I am just too tired to go out. I found the full text of Peter Beagle's short story "Two Hearts" on his website earlier this week, and I read some of it tonight.

When Josh came home from his second job he announced that we have a new roommate tonight. He works in a pet store and bought a betta fish named "Betta Fett."