Late again today, and for breakfast I just grabbed a cookie and a chocolate bar. I took an extra but I gave it to Dan who was complaining of “low blood sugar.”
I was fifth position on double-blues today, and still had another three after me. I got my three returns when they showed up and Jeronimo uncharacteristically volunteered to take a class of blues together with his returns. Tameca booked more instructors than needed because she was nervous after needing many more than she had yesterday. The confusion didn't make any trouble for me and it made for smaller classes.
I only had my three returns to start with so Kokopelli was our first run and I took them off-piste right away. After I took them down the Tunnel of Fun where they all chain-crashed into each other, I met Bill at the top of Saddleback lift and he gave me one of his blue class, a boy named Sasha he felt was double-blue. He was a little slower than the others but not enough to be a problem, except that on our way down to lunch he got himself stuck in some deep snow and took a long time to get out of it. I lost patience and got easily frustrated with them whenever they took very long to get up and get themselves in order. We were less than 20 minutes late for lunch and still had plenty of food: they served pizzas today. I still only had tater tots and fruit, so when I got home I had a big dinner.
A double blue class is generally pretty fun, even though I was short-tempered today and still tired. I thought I got enough sleep but I was yawning all the time today. On Chicane, I taught them to engage their edges early in the turn and was surprised at how quickly they got it and what a positive effect it had on their skiing. On Another World I decided to challenge them and took them from there down The Drop, an easy black run that is just a very steep groomed trail. They saw it and the new kid Sasha literally quivered in fright; only David made the conscious decision to be enthusiastic about every trail I suggested. I reassured them that they’d be perfectly safe if and only if they did big turns in the shape I wanted, and by halfway down it Sasha said, “Hey this isn’t so bad; it’s actually kind of fun!”
It was a pretty good tip day for me. In the morning Samantha’s father asked me if I could take her today and I apologetically explained that I am on double-blues now (she is in blues.) He handed me a $20 tip for the days I had her before. That was not just nice of him, it meant I had a $20 bill in my pocket, totally legit, to take out with the report cards as I handed them to the other parents at the end of the day. That reminder netted me an additional $30. At the end of the day Tameca also said that somebody was looking around for me - Mikey, a Cats instructor - because a father had a tip he wanted to give me and needed my details. I didn’t find that one or the $50 that should have been waiting for me at the hotel - I wonder if the people entrusted to hold them for me are just keeping them?
This morning in the locker room I ran into none other than Simon J. Lowry, original inventor of the famed Lowry Method. The Lowry Method is to ski with all your kids in a big disorderly horde behind you, while gyrating your arms and shouting, “Parallel! Parallel!” He’s a friend from Ireland who did his instructor’s course and PSIA test in Switzerland along with me two years ago, and I haven’t seen him since. I arranged to meet him at Smokie’s after work and when I got there after my runs he was just about to leave. Being an Irishman of course he was easily persuaded to stay for another beer. I told him about what I had my kids do yesterday to help the new kid, and how well it worked. We talked a lot and caught up; it turns out he worked at The Canyons last season and is here now only a couple of weeks for the holiday. We only wanted to have one beer but we sat with Greg, Adrian, and another Aussie I don’t remember... Greg just kept ordering more pitchers and pouring them, so I had three cups. At least it was not expensive: we drank the cheap American lager.
Well, today Greg rained on my parade: when I mentioned being lead yesterday he scoffed and said, “That lead thing is a load of bullshit! Any idiot could do it - whoever does it usually doesn’t even have their name on the board. Tameca puts the most experienced instructors on there and we have to send out guys who aren’t even certified, and then don’t even get any work! They should put the new guys on lead, any fool can do it.” I said he was probably right, because I did it and it went well.
My new orthotic insoles were hurting my left foot this morning. I am pretty sure that one is just too high in the instep, because at the end of the day it was not hurting but still uncomfortable. The right one is perfectly comfortable and it does help my edge transitions when carving. I wanted to take them back to the store to get the left one fixed, but I got held up at the bar for too long, and then Simon offered to drive me home. He’s always good about that sort of thing. The cabriolet wasn't running anymore when we left the bar at 6:00PM and instead of waiting for the circulator bus, we hopped on a hotel shuttle to the parking lot, which drove us right to his car. Simon said it was a good thing we didn't ask if that was for guests only, and I explained to him the concept of a "kitbag question."
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