Goodbye Winthrop, Hello Tahoe

Well, despite my best intentions, plane tickets, hotel reservations, a rental car and fully paid 3 days of ski camp, I didn't make it there today. I got in the cab at 7:55am, got to the airport on time, boarded the plane - pleased with my bulkhead aisle seat - and started knitting. Then there's this odd announcement about a - delay? What? It's sunny and beautiful outside! Ah, but not so in the pacific northwest. Apparently there was a crazy snowstorm in Seattle, replete with 0 mile visibility. Then I started worrying about this crazy storm and our 2 hour delay - since it was covering the 2 passes I would need to drive over. Washington was in the process of getting dumped on. I talked to some Washington locals who said I definitely should not try to drive from Seattle to the North Cascades today, so I looked in the Alaska Airlines magazine and lo and behold! They fly to Wenatchee. So I cancel my rental car in Seattle, buy a ticket to Wenatchee (which is only 2 hours from ski camp) and go about getting a rental car. Funny thing, there were none. NONE. Enterprise, Budget and Hertz - the 3 rental car companies in Wenatchee, had no 4 wheel drive vehicles. Shoot. I mean really none - none to the point of my asking to see if I could get one the next day they said there were none available until next year. ! They were trying to get some over from Spokane, but they just got 22 inches of snow in the last day or two themselves. Apparently they'd been getting totaled more frequently than expected.

So as my flight delay grows larger making my connection to Wenatchee look less probable I realize I am kind of screwed. No way of getting from Wenatchee to Winthrop. Unsafe travel conditions to go from seattle and at that point it would mean driving probably a minimum of 8 hours through treacherous terrain alone. Plus, it was looking a lot like I would need to stay the night somewher eon route - and what is the point of missing the first day of a 3 day camp?

Then there's the other reality that I have been dreading going! Once I heard the weather would be highs in the single digits the whole time I got a knot in my stomach each time I thought about it. I mean starting out at 8am when it's -2 outside without windchill? UGH. Not enjoyable! Not for me at least. There are some people who would either enjoy it or enjoy the challenge of it, but I am not those people. Especially in a coaching situation where you ski, get sweaty then stand around and *freeze* with chattering teeth and all.

So I said screw it at the very last minute (literally) that I could get off the plane, they somehow miraculously pulled my bags off and home I went, 4 hours later.

Luckily I remembered Tahoe - where I am part of a winter ski rental! So I ran inside, grabbed my ski wax, started the dishwasher, took my whole knitting needle bag, fed the cat and ran back out to drive up here. Unfortunately this drive was treacherous too - took 6 hours with a record 1 mile in 54 minutes (record for me that is) and was a bit white-out-ish at times near the summit - but I made it and I am now warm in the cabin watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (with Gene Wilder), drinking whiskey and relaxing. Yeehaw!!

The skiing will be good - if not tomorrow then definitely the next day and it is about 20 degrees warmer than Winthrop. Phew!

un-friended

It's been a good 6 months since I've written, I guess that highlights the Lazy in 'Lazy Overachiever', eh? Not much has has happened except that my work took off at the speed of light, leaving me to run after it all hours of the day, every day of the week. Things have settled down over the last couple of months, thankfully, and I am working at balancing a personal life with my career so my friends who have written me off will once again start asking if I actually want to leave the house... ever.

One thing that has kept me sane is Facebook - or more specifically satisfied the voyeur in me. I get to read the status updates and view the photos that my 412 "friends" post. Do I really have 412 friends you ask? No. these days I hardly feel like i have any since most are either long distance or expanding their families. I would say that all of the local people I have accepted or sent friend requests to are definitely friendly acquaintances at the least. There is another contingent though of "friends" from my high school nearly all of whom I have never spoken to in the 18 years since I have left. I am fascinated by these folk though. It's oftentimes such a mystery, too, as to who they even are! You have a married name and a profile photo of children with no parent. Who are you?!? Why are you testing my memory in such a way that makes my head hurt? After a fair amount of sleuthing i can usually figure it out - or I ask another friend who may know. There are only 2 people I never figured out. Then the question remains - was I friends with you in high school? Did I like you? Did you torture me? Were you a raging bitch to me? Did I want to run you over? I have actually gotten friend invites from people who made my life miserable in high school. Why be my "friend" now 18 years later? Is this some sort of new popularity contest I should know about? I actually went through the other day and unfriended at least 10 people who no longer met the facebook definition of friend - whatever that means. I hate to have too many of anything - clothes, stuff, friends. I like to keep it as efficient as possible! I am a minimalist after all.

So then one of these new-found high school friends moved to San Francisco, so we got in touch and went out for some wine 19 years later. I don't think I had ever spoken to him in high school - really. He was a grade ahead and really popular and hot. He probably smiled at me once unknowingly and that was about it. So it was really very fun catching up - he agreed he wasn't sure we had ever spoken, but that he remembered me in some sports jersey. He is surprisingly unmarried as the lion share of people from my high school are long since married with kids. I would say maybe 5 of us are not - out of 100+ people. The funny thing was he was asking why I was single and I was saying I hadn't met anyone I was interested in - the usual banter. I explained that having been a math major with a degree in computer science is really not much of a turn-on and that owning a house usually chases them away completely. He was kind to say that those should be turn-ons and men should like strong, successful, smart women... how those guys are *clearly* the 'wrong guys'. Easy enough to say - of course it turns out that he is dating a 24 year old girl! Hey, 38 year old guy, how about the strong, successful, smart women?! He's like eh, no thanks.