Way Finding

Yesterday we did a bit of classic skiing for a change from skate skiing. (Classic is where you mostly keep your skis parallel when you move. It's also known as cross-country.) Because classic is less arduous than skate, we went further and had more adventures.

Here, for your pleasure, is a brief recap.

Susan and James set out a'skiing. Spirits are high.

J: This is fun!

S: And easier than skate skiing!

They head down a trail. Quite a few downhill skiers are also on the trail.

S: Are you sure this is the trail?

J: It says so on the map.

S: Jesus! What was that?

J: Snowboarder. Look out! There's another one!

Snowboarder in checked suit does wild, twisting leap over Susan and James' head, almost lands on them.

S: Good god! We're on a... a... freestyle trail or something.

J: [Consults map.] It says this is a "mixed use" trail.

S: That should mean dogs and snowmobiles and snowshoers. Not snowboards.

J: LOOK OUT!

A raging river of skiiers and boarders heads heads toward them at speeds of up to 100 km per hour. Some skiiers barely miss them. A just-learning-to-snowboard-type knocks Susan into the side of the trail.

J: Are you okay?

S: No. Can you get us off this trail?

J: [Consults map.] It says here, we should keep following Death Trap Trail until we reach Thrashed Knee Pass. Then we climb for 2 km up Having a Stroke Way. Go left where Busted Head meets Never Walk Again. Then we'll reach the nordic system of trails.

At this point, Susan leaps into a ravine and is never seen from again. Okay, that's not true. But I was tempted. The entire day was like that. We skiied relaxing cross country trail and then encountered total head-on terror on veritable snow superhighways full of boarders and skiiers.

There was one highlight on one of those scary stretches. We saw a tiny weasel-like creature diving in and out of holes in the snow. A thin white whisper of a thing, it was about as long as my hand and wrist and had a black-tipped tail. It flitted across the trail several times, avoiding skiiers and snowboarders. It was so fascinating that it even got me to stop swearing for a minute or two. That, my friends, is the spirit of Christmas.

You can put that in your blog, as James would say.

Bert's demise

Yeah, so we ate Bert. But I believe that he has cousins available at the bakery.

Also, the snow eased enough yesterday to allow us to go tubing. Because our combined weight was so great (thanks to Burt) we shot past all the safety barriers and nearly hit the wall at the end of the run. Good fun.

No plaid suited youth have attempted to eat us because the village has wisely laid in quite a lot of supplies. But we are on the lookout for signs that people have run out of hotdogs and cream puffs and will take evasive maneuvers accordingly.

I've decided that Silverstar should be renamed Thirty-dollar-Star. Every time we leave our room we spend a minimum of thirty dollars. Go out for coffee and a pastry: thirty dollars. Buy a new toque: thirty dollars. Cross country ski pass: thirty dollars. Today I'm going to go wander around with only twenty dollars in my pocket and see whether I'm approached by someone in a supervisory position.

Last night we watched Waitress, written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. It was amazing. Sweet and funny and perfectly cast (Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines) it joins my list of top romantic movies. Adrienne Shelly also starred in my all-time favourite movie, The Unbelievable Truth. She died before Waitress was released. I can only imagine the movies she would have gone on to make. If you get a chance, watch it this holiday...

Blizzard!

Well, folks, we are officially snowed in. Well, not officially. No one has knocked on our door and said, "Susan and James, you are snowed in. Please don't go anywhere." If they did that I'd freak, because we don't have a lot of groceries. Here's what we have:

three bags of chips, assorted

six apples

two oranges

four bananas

one large Hungarian salami

one block jalapeno montery jack cheese

some chocolates

Bert, the 3 lb cream puff (and we can't eat him because I'm hoarding him, plus I've named him so he may join the ranks of the Live Forever Canada Day Cupcake)

In other words, were we to be seriously snowed in, we could starve. It's a real concern. It could end up like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy up here on Silverstar Mountain. In case you haven't read that book, it's about this man and his son wandering through a post-apocalyptic world. There's hardly any food left and people have taken to eating each other. (I'm not giving anything away here. People always eat each other in post-apocalyptic scenarios. That's what makes them so gripping.) If this snow continues, James and I may have to practice our commando maneuvers just to make it out of here with all of us intact. The good news for us is that all the kids in checked suits will be as easy to spot as stray couches they lie in wait for us near the outdoor firepits, hotdog sticks at the ready.

I'll keep you posted. Could be it often snows like this up here. It is, after all, a ski resort. Still, I'm from the Island and this sort of thing comes across as an emergency to me.

Finally, I got the sweetest note from a student from Ontario. She's one of the people who will be voting for the White Pine Award. She said she liked Another Kind of Cowboy but was uncertain whether to vote for it. She was going to read the other nominees several more times to make sure. I encouraged her to go with her immediate instinct and VOTE FOR COWBOY! Here's why. My husband and I are snowed in on Silverstar Mountain. We could, at any moment, be eaten by marauding youth in oversized plaid snowsuits. And I wrote Another Kind of Cowboy, so I'm biased in favour of it. If you are a White Pine voter from Ontario, I encourage you to heed this advice. If I was on tour in your area I'd tell you myself, but I'm not because I'm snowed in.

Until later...

New motto: Bert the Cream Puff will be the last to go.

Breaking news!

Just in case you were wondering what the well-dressed young boarder is wearing this year I can sum it up in two words: big and plaid.

It's like every cool kid on the mountain just inherited a massively obese relative's seventies leisure suit. I approve completely.

In other news, after an hour of skiing, I found a nice cafe in which to recuperate. In that cafe I found a cream puff that weighs approximately three pounds. One pound of that is chocolate. I've been carrying it around for an hour. It brings out the hoarder in me.

Finally, my husband's new tag line is: "Put that in your blog". He tells me that after just about every sentence. This Christmas holiday, I might just do that.

Shhhhh...

I have to write this very quietly because James is still sleeping. You know how noisy blogging can be!

We are at Silverstar Mountain for a ski holiday. Oh yes we are. That's the great news. The bad news is that there's a chance I'm a trifle out of shape. We skate ski, which is like it sounds: skating on skis. It's fun but very, very arduous. It is an anaerobic exercise, which is a fancy way of saying that when you do it, you tend to run out of air and your heart goes into a frenzy of beating just to keep you from dropping dead from a lack of air.

I'm thinking that the routine will consist of ten minutes skiing. Ten minutes stopping to recover, perhaps with the assistance of a small chocolate biscuit. After an hour of this, I plan to retreat to the room to bask in front of the fireplace. Which is gas and therefore easy to light. There will be coffee and more chocolates. Then, after I rouse myself from that tough activity, I'll perhaps move to the bunk beds for a nap, alternating between the top and the bottom bunks. We have a proper bed, but a person likes a little variety.

Then we'll take a trip to the restaurant. And repeat. By the end of this vacation we should be two of the fattest skate skiers to ever hyperventilate on this hill.

As I've mentioned the new website is nearly up and ready. Diane, web wizard, has been working day and night to get it ready, but it's giving her problems, as websites often seem to do. It may or may not be up before Christmas. It's worth waiting for. And there's a lot of news and reviews about Another Kind of Cowboy to share. Stay tuned!

Total Excuse

Sorry for the complete absence of updates (am also sorry for how many times I had to type out the word "absence" before I remembered how to spell it). But as noted earlier the new website (and blog) will be launched any time now. When it's up, it'll be Update City around here. Seriously. Not to mention Podcasttown and Youtubeville. Susanjuby.com will be a multiplatform paradise. Ahem.

Before I go back to my usual mysterious silence, I'd like to congratulate all those who got a new climate accord process started in Bali. And I'd like to thank the Canadian government for finally getting out of the way and allowing an agreement to be put in place. Yeesh. Such leadership.

Oh, and there's a new season of the best show in THE WORLD available on DVD now. I'm so pumped about this new season of The Wire that I'm too excited to actually watch it, which is lame, I know. I've decided that all episodes must be watched in a marathon session with no interruptions except perhaps for refreshments (New York Cheddar Cheese chips) and the odd blog post about how much I love the characters, the writing, the pacing and the themes.

Hope is in the air!

Everywhere I look around!

Sing it!