Well, we had a week or so of pretty decent (40′s to 50′s) dry weather, but now we’re back to powder days again. Springtime on the Rockies.
I actually managed to get myself out to the golf course a couple of times, even played two holes once.
Then we awoke to a new 12 inches in the driveway. There’s probably twice that atop Aspen Mountain. I’ll have to get up there and find out.
For the time being, all I can say is:
THANK GOD I GOT A BUNCH OF YARDWORK IN BEFORE ALL THIS SHOWED UP!
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Just ran into a neighbor whose 15-year-old broke his humerus yesterday, skiing. And tomorrow is the annual school ski day. Where everybody goes skiing.
She said that, already, the kid (Ian) has heard so many broken-humerus stories that he doesn’t feel all that bad.
(I told his mom my broken-humerus story: After I’d been in rehab 5 weeks, my therapist tested my reactions by throwing a tennis ball at me from 20 feet. All different directions: up, down, across my body, etc. And he said, “If you miss even one, you’re not cleared to go skiing.”
(And when we were done, and I passed, I asked him if anybody ever misses one. And he smiled and said, “Nope.”)
Anyway, to put things in perspective, I mentioned to Ian’s mom that we could be living in the inner city, and be worried about our kids getting shot.
So look at it that way:
THANK GOD WE LIVE IN A PLACE WHERE OUR BIGGEST DANGER IS OURSELVES!
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You might not recognize this guy, but it’s the young Sergei Rachmaninoff. Russian composer and pianist extraordinaire.
The story goes that after the total failure of his first symphony, he ran off to Switzerland and underwent psychotherapy for 10 years. At the end of which his doctor asked, “Have you ever considered writing music that you’d like to hear?”
And thus was born (shortly thereafter) the beloved 2nd piano concerto.
Moral of the story: While I might be struggling trying to find an audience for my books, at least I know what I want to write.
And, looking back on my younger days, when I thought about how neat it would be to write music instead of prose, I’m all too aware of the miasma enveloping contemporary “serious” music. There’s no direction, no audience, and no real hope for a “breakthrough.” (You might say the same thing about the world of theoretical physics.)
So all I can say is:
THANK GOD I’M NOT A COMPOSER!
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Don’t you hate it when you ask somebody to get their bicycle out of your yard, take it back home to their own house, in the fall…
… and it’s still there mid-winter?
It’d be even worse if you had to shovel around it.
Fortunately, we haven’t had a banner snow year (thus far), so the abandoned bike hasn’t rusted too much.
And to think: Lance Armstrong lives right across the street. At least he can’t see this from his house. He’d probably come marching across the street and chew me out. (I’m safe for the moment, cuz he’s in Australia right now.)
But my day of reckoning is coming. And so, for now, all I think is:
THANK GOD HE’S NEVER ASKED ME TO JOIN HIM FOR A RIDE!
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Every year for Wintersköl, we have a torchlight descent on Little Nell, followed by a great fireworks display overhead. It’s the one night of the winter when you don’t bring your dog to town. Dogs absolutely hate fireworks.
The rest of us get a big “kick” out of them, but our canine companions hide under beds and desks and whimper.
So, if I could sit down and reason with our family pooch, and after I’d run through all the reasons I could think of, my solace of last resort would be:
THANK GOD YOU DON’T LIVE IN MONTE CARLO!
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Once or twice a week, in the winter, I walk up and down Buttermilk Mountain, which is our dedicated beginners’ ski area. (Not that you can’t enjoy it, at any level of ski ability. It’d be the most popular ski area around, if it didn’t have to compete in Aspen with 3 other world-class ski areas.) It’s a good workout: an hour up, 45 minutes back down. And I usually wind up helping out one or two folks every time I’m out there, with one thing or another. (I used to work at B’milk, a long time ago, so I know the place pretty well.)
And once upon a time, I learned to snowboard there.
Or, should I say: I attempted to learn to snowboard there.
Cuz it’s harder than I’d realized, not being able to recall learning to ski when I was a little munchkin.
It’s scenes like the above photo, which I see every day in one variant or another, that make me say:
THANK GOD I DON’T HAVE TO LEARN THIS ALL OVER AGAIN!
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Christmas in Aspen.
It seems like just about every year some blame fool or other decides that he’s gotta make himself unhappy for the holidays.
At least this time there were no guns involved. Just a switchblade. (Who doesn’t travel without a switchblade these days?)
I know that Hollywood publicists insist that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but serious jail time’s gotta trump simply being out of the limelight for a week or two.
Whatever happened to just being happy, with friends and family?
My favorite, from many years ago, was when the Caribou Club instituted a 2-bodyguards-per-person rule for the holidays. Seemed that the club was getting a little too cramped with folks having too big of an entourage. Especially when the bodyguards are packing serious sidearms.
All I can say is:
THANK GOD I DON’T HANG OUT WITH THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE!
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My wife’s off this morning to be a “greeter” at our local episcopal church. Not being a believer, myself, I don’t have to go with her.
We were joking, this morning in bed, about how some folks there must think that she’s a widow, or a divorcee.
For no apparent reason, that reminded me of an old joke:
The minister for a church one day up and absconds with all the church funds. Every penny. He just vanishes. So the church elders choose a trusted church member to go out and find him. Bring him back, if possible. At least recover the money.
So a year later, the trusted church member returns, looking pretty beat-up and bedraggled. He reports that he did, indeed, find the scoundrel. He’d been in Las Vegas all this time.
And what had he done with all the money? the church elders wanted to know.
And the trusted church member, somewhat sheepishly, replied, “Well, some of it he spent on gambling, and some of it went to drink and drugs, and a lot of it he spent on wild women…”
“And…?” the elders prompted.
“… And…” the trusted church member stuttered, “… and the rest of it, I guess, he just squandered.”
Anyway, I don’t know who that guy in the photo is, but you’ve gotta admire a man who stands up for his convictions!
Or do you?
All I can say is:
THANK GOD I’M NOT ONE OF THOSE!
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WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU DETEST YOUR BEST FRIEND’S BOYFRIEND?
Boy, that’s a toughie. (But at least it’s better than your best friend’s husband. In theory, at least, a boyfriend is temporary.)
Fortunately, this isn’t my problem. It’s my daughter’s.
But my initial answer was, upon reflection, probably as good as any I’d ever come up with:
THANK GOD HE’S NOT YOURS!!
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