Weird names

I have a system now, perfectly timed so I can hit the snooze on my alarm a few times, make some coffee and a sandwich, and catch the 0800 bus so I’m up at work right on the minute. I was first position on Reds today (and I assume second did not get a class.) I started with only one nine-year-old girl named Kennedy, but two others joined late when we were doing laps on the magic carpet, and I got them caught up. I spent the entire day down there. I wish they’d run Ripper Rue but they usually don’t. I have to find a supervisor for the lifties or have my boss talk to their boss and work something out... That rope-tow is steeper than the other two beginner lifts, and helps a lot because the leap from the magic carpet to the chairlift is a big one in terms of steepness.

One of the girls was actually only six years old (her birthday is in March) but she was no trouble and could turn in a wedge better than the others, so rather than sending her back to Cats I moved her up to Marcelo’s green class! We took a few breaks in the morning to look at boots and have snacks, and I did the switch then.

My remaining two girls couldn’t grasp turning very well, and it was slow going. I decided to take it at a leisurely pace and be patient, even if I couldn’t get them to the chairlift today. I tried a number of techniques and took them over to the button lift Sweet Pea, but in time I just had us ski many laps around the carpet, and they gradually improved.

Skylynn was seven years old and it took a few minutes to get her attention, but once she got the hang of sidestepping up to the carpet and enjoyed skiing down, everything started going smoothly from there. Chris gave us a balloon and I passed it around everyone’s helmets (and my sunglasses, and the helmet of a Cat in someone else’s class.)

Lunch today was only pizza, lasagna, and corn dogs. Last night I saw a documentary show about how hot dogs and corn dogs are made. I couldn’t eat much of them. Fortunately I had my sandwich. Both of my girls ate salad and drank water so I was very proud. Jacqueline, who I had earlier in the week, saw me there and said hi to me. When I asked her how she liked her new instructor Greg, she hugged me! These children can be very sweet sometimes.

Kennedy was cute and talkative: she kept talking to me about TV shows she watched. Her father is a doctor (or a medical scientist, I’m not clear on which) and when I asked her what she wanted to be, she said she was going to be the first girl president. Once she saw her little sister Kora crying and asked to go investigate. A zipper on Kora’s gloves had broken so Kennedy gave her sister hers, and her instructor Leifhan went to grab a pair of gloves for her from the lost-and-found. I try to help out the Cats instructors whenever I can because they usually have their hands full even with only three children.

Each of the two parents that collected my kids today gave me a $20 tip! I remembered to collect both the tags and I took good care of them, making sure they had all their gear in the right places, blowing up a balloon, things like that. Both of my girls are hopefully coming back tomorrow so I’ve asked to be on Yellows, where I graduated them.

After that I had a quick run through the park with Josh and we met Emily and Damien on the way. I just easy-jumped the jumps and tried one little sideways slide on a box. Then I invited Josh to follow me down Silverado Bowl. Today somebody stole or lost my helmet with a pair of goggles in it, which were in a high cubby in the rough. I thought that helmet was far too ugly to steal! I have my backup pair of goggles, but I taught all day and skied down in sunglasses. It clouded up today and the light was flat, so I could see nothing in sunglasses. Either Deer Valley drastically improved my mogul skills, or the bumps on Silverado are easier now... Anyway, I could not see them in the flat light without ski goggles, so I just zoomed confidently right down that run with the speed of my descent fanning my hair. Josh quickly bailed out and went back to Doc’s Run, and at the bottom he told me that was the worst run he had ever done: it was hard-packed moguls he called “bumpy ice.” I thought it was really softer and easier than it’s been, and much easier than Daly Bowl in Deer Valley. We’re hoping for snow this weekend. The un-skiable mountainside under Short Cut lift is now showing big swathes of green grass and it’s depressing.

Two people called me today about my ad for the room(s). One of them is a liftie at Deer Valley and he came over to see the house tonight. He’s a pretty cool guy. It turns out he dated one of Vanessa’s friends and already heard about our place through her. He worked as a bus driver at Denali in Alaska, and in California. I gave him a beer and we even played a little Gears of War on the Xbox.

It was one of my better days today.