My ski instructor said, about halfway through, that I was doing well. He didn't mean ski-wise necessarily but instruction-wise. He said, "By this time, most women are either yelling at me or crying." What men might be doing, I don't know. I should have called him on that, but I was too busy being glad to be better than I usually am at taking criticism.
RDC2's snowboarding lesson didn't go as well and he bailed. He wants to try skiing next time because snowboarding was so hard. His uncle and I and probably his instructors told him that skiing is harder to pick up than skiing, and all of us told him that part of his difficulty came from his dehydration, and that no, Sprite does not replenish your fluids well enough. He flat out refuses to drink water, and he would not drink the lesson's offered Gator-Aid because an instructor half-diluted it with water not to overwhelm his system.
My skiing day started out cloudy, so did I think of sunscreen? I did not. Did it stay cloudy? It did not. So besides becoming tubercular from sanding, I also had leprosy of the face. Hence the atypical apastiness in the photograph.
The mine tour--the Phoenix mine near Idaho Springs--was really interesting. I learned new words, like winze, a steeply inclined passageway connecting a mine working place with a lower one, and that the surfaces of a mine tunnel are called the back, ribs, and belly. This mine, when it is operational, gets three ounces of gold per ton of not-gold, whereas the strip-mines up by Yellowstone that use, or want to use, cyanide to separate the gold get sixteenths of an ounce per ton.
We panned for gold--the miner said that that a few times a year someone actually picks up a nugget--and I picked up some pretty rocks.
Friday night we paid Intern in cash and Tommy's Thai to have RDC2 for the evening while the four of us went to Adega. Sweet heaven, that was a fine and tasty meal. Well paced, well served, and most of all well cooked. Succulent, subtle, and fucking delicious. JHT didn't connect our having mentioned it when he saw its mention in the inflight magazine article, so he was pleased that we had already planned it.
Earlier in the week I couldn't lift RDC2's 85 pounds to my hip to dance with him as my mother danced with me--I needed him to stand on something so the lift was only horizontal not vertical. Sheesh. When I arrived at Intern's house, they were watching "Princess Bride" and he wanted to stay, somewhat to watch the end, only a few minutes away, but mostly because he was tired. His sleepiness gave my pride a reason to squat to lift him from the couch and carry him the block to the car, where I reassured him we had the movie at home.
JHT had lit on the fact that Intern is Mormon, and so asked, "Shouldn't they have been watching 'Princess Brides'?" We began--sorry, Intern--mercilessly to riff on that: Kramer vs. Kramers, Twelve Monkey Brides, Brides of Frankenstein, and my personal favorite (because it was the best as well as being my own), Seven Brides for One Brother.
Last night looking back on the floor over which we'd just taped resin (rosin?) paper, RDC said it was neater than he wraps my presents. My presents have that pesky third dimension.
After confirming the need or desire for it Friday on my way home from work, this morning I brought RDC2's leftover groceries to the nearby elementary school: an unopened gallon of cow milk, drinkable sugar-laced yogurt, and sugar-laden puddings, the latter two in ridiculous packaging. Tomorrow I will bring the juices, in unrecyclable boxes and bags, because everything at once was too much to manage on my bike.
In addition to the dairy stuff, I brought my clarinet. I have not touched it since eleventh grade, so I won't miss it--what I miss is any dedication to homemade music. The secretary expressed her thanks for the instrument, which the school needs badly. I hope they do enjoy it.