Free drinks

I had a good day today. It was a cold morning but warmed up soon after I got up the hill. The bus was just a couple minutes too early so I had to freeze out at the stop for half an hour. Iain rode up the cabriolet with me and happily told me that he managed to milk a request private lesson out of one of his class yesterday. He also got an assigned “private” of five people in the afternoon, and he rolled another request out of that too! I haven't been able to spin any requests yet but I'm happy for the people who can get private lessons as it's less competition on the groups.

I was third position on the Greens today so I didn’t expect work, and the first two groups went as soon as they had five kids each. The little boy Nicholas was back this Saturday but early, so I let him go with the first out. After the first two groups went out, latecomers kept streaming in! Each time I thought I had them all written on my hill sheet and ready to go, more showed up. For a few minutes there I thought I’d have nine kids in my class! Tameca must have noticed the crowd because she sent Adrian to help me out. I had him help buckle up all the kids’ boots, and we went up to High Meadow together rather late to split the group.

Four of the young girls wouldn’t quite turn well, so he took them and left me the other five, though that meant splitting up two sets of siblings. I was very happy with my five: they were the high greens and could all ski at a pretty good pace. I tried to keep it exciting for them with jumps and tricks like skiing up and down a “wall” and they were eager to try steeper hills. We spent the morning practicing on High Meadow and all afternoon on the blue runs from Saddleback, which they handled well. The oldest girl Audrey could make a passable imitation of parallel turns, and a good hockey stop. Her sister wasn’t quite as skilled but gutsy and had good balance and control even on the steeper blue runs. At the end of the day, the three boys were all doing what I’ve decided to call “potty surfing”: skiing in a huge wedge with their weight way back behind their heels. I think they were just tired by then, or lazy.

Today there was a contest to draw safety posters with crayons at lunchtime. I had my children think of safety topics on the chairlift and they came up with stuff ranging from “don’t duck under ropes” to “watch out for snowboarders!” One of my boys drew a poster warning not to ski out of bounds, and another drew one advising to follow the instructor’s tracks.

All my kids had fun though I only improved their skiing by a modest amount. At the end of the day I got a $20 tip from a parent of the last kid I checked out. Another saw that and came into the rough to give me $10 too, as he was pleased with how I got his son turning well and skiing more responsibly. Tameca asked me to take down the shuttle stop so I went over there, took down all the fences and moved away the ski racks. Adrian came by eventually to help me roll up the fences. It took less than 20 minutes but it was about 4:00PM when we were done.

I changed into my own jacket to ski down. We got an email today that from now only level 2 or level 3 certified instructors can ski down to the bottom in uniform. I’m just going to leave my uniform coat up on the hill constantly. There was a massive line at Short Cut, and I met Celeste there with a liftie from South Africa. They were going to Sun Peak, but I was not going to give up Silverado as it was my only real run of the day.

I hopped up to Smokie’s where I found my roommates Scott and Mike having beers at a very crowded table. Instead, I joined my instructor friend Sean and another friend of his, also named Sean. They recommended I try “Nitro cream ale” which was pretty smooth and creamy. Something was odd with the bill: we were charged for three beers between us but they claimed they had two each, so they just covered mine too and I got my beer for free.

On the way back, the 5:30PM bus was half an hour late so I had to freeze at the stop again for forty minutes! It was less cramped than I expected, and people could have squeezed into the back much more than they did.

At home a friend of Mike’s showed up with a bunch of drinks and presented a cocktail of about half a highball glass (so about four shots or four parts) of vodka, about three parts sweet & sour mix, and the last part blue Gatorade. The cheap vodka is charcoal filtered so it’s less hangover-toxic, and the Gatorade is full of nutrients that prevent a hangover as well. He says it gets girls drunk fast, but it tastes really nice, and is green. Maybe those crazy Mormons even water down the vodka somehow because I had one and still didn’t feel drunk.