Ski Mom

It's Saturday morning and that means I'm happily camped out at a table in the ski lodge. It's 10:45 and the music being piped in overhead is from the late 70's, early 80's. It's a little too loud but it's been a long time since I've heard "Life's Been Good to Me" and the longer the music plays, the less I hate it. (For the first half hour I was here, there was no music and the place so so peaceful and quiet . . . .)

I don't get to do much here. I can maybe get a little work done because I have my laptop and my work with me, but the noise is distracting and in spite of good intentions, I only occasionally get much work done.

OTOH, what I do get to do is know that if Max is not here at the table, then he's out there having fun and skiing down the hills. Today we have the best snow fall we've seen this winter. It's beautiful, and as long as you're dressed properly and wearing goggles, it's a lot of fun to ski in. It's supposed to keep snowing on and off all weekend and starting tomorrow the lodge will start making new snow on all the slopes. In short, the forecast is great for my three little skiers on Monday.

For most of this month, I have to leave a little early to go home and change into my knitting-teacher hat. (In this case, I mostly just need to trade cars with Chris because he needs to Taurus to go pick up Max with the twins.) I mentioned this to Max on the way home and he frowned, saying he much preferred things when he knew I was in the lodge the whole time.

I can understand that. If you're out there taking risks for four hours straight, trying all the new stuff your instructor is asking you to do, it's helpful to know that if you really get sick of this, or need a break, or worse--break something, that your Mom is right there in the lodge. And I admit that I like being here to do just that. I can't really see him skiing from here --the best view from the lodge is actually of the learning slopes, and this class doesn't spend any time there.

But I like sitting at the table waiting to hear about how it all went. Drinking a cup of hot chocolate (we've learned to bring food from home whenever possible. The food served in the lodge is both expensive and horrible with the exception, maybe, of some cookies. So I bring two mugs and some packages of hot chocolate and two lunch boxes with hot-food thermoses, some fruit, and some yogurt.) Iming with Chris who is in his garage at home painting plastic car bodies and keeping an ear open for the twinkies.

Speaking of which, some of Max's class is coming in from the slopes now, so I'm going to wrap this up and wait for the update on what he learned so far. It's lunch time and they'll all head back out soon.