The joy of skiing

Ski, what a wonderful thing! The snow glistens like diamond-powder in the warm March sun. I take a confident look towards the slope, strap my goggles on and majestically start down the hill. The light wind feels so pleasant on my face as I make elegant turns, to the left, to the right, a small jump... and a perfect landing. It's an amazing feeling so I empty my lungs in a ritualistic cry the signifies my perfect unity with the universe, "wooooo" - it can't get any better than this. Stop, stop, will you just stop already. That's not exactly how it goes, does it? Let's try again.

It's spring break, all around us we hear about responsible parents who take their kids skiing. How can I deprive my kids of this pleasure? why did I come to Canada in the first place, if it wasn't to allow my kids to enjoy everything this great land has to offer? In 10 years time, when they are the only ones among their peers who don't know how to ski, what will they tell their friends? My parents were dumb immigrants from a warm country and didn't quite get it? Can't let this happen.

A friends invites us to come to Vernon. "There's a great house on a lake that you can house-sit". Wow, that sounds great - free accommodations, a chance to ski Silver Star mountain, who can pass that up? I'm so giddy I make the following suggestion to Noa, my wife, "why don't we all do some skiing, give the kids some motivation, a chance to ski as a family". It's not that me and Noa never tried skiing  before, we've actually done quite a bit of it in our teens and twenties, but decided to stop over a decade ago. Why? I'm not quite sure and don't really care, we're going and that's final!

I immediately make reservations. Here is a simple cost breakdown for one day: lift pass - $80, equipment rentals $40, class - $60. So if we make our own lunches, use our old snow pants and winter coats, and only ski for three days, the total cost will be... $1980. What, this is insane?!  I do my best to minimize cost - Nomi can get a lift pass for 4th graders through Ski Pass Canada for $30 (thank you Canada!), Lior is 5 for another month so he gets a free lift pass. I frantically call for rental deals in the greater Vernon area and find something more affordable. I decide to forgo classes for myself and Lior, and Nomi and Noa will take one lesson only. Then Julie, our Vernon friend, comes through with a great deal on lift passes through a FB friend of hers. So if Noa and I use our old ski equipment (the boots should still fit us shouldn't they?) we can afford it.

The 5 hour drive goes without a hitch. We spend the first day renting the equipment. Turns out that our old boots are way too small. Noa, at list  has her two births to blame for her growing feet, what's my excuse? Next day we wake up at 7am and start preparing for the mountain, make lunches, get dressed, get the kids dressed. Lior protests. Of course he does, it's too early and we're on vacation, but we must make it to the mountain on time for Noa's and Nomi's class. Up on the mountain it takes another 20 minutes to get everyone into their ski boots - we made the mistake of leaving the equipment in the car overnight, and now the boots are frozen and unyielding. By the time we drop Noa and Nomi (just on time) Lior is not a happy camper. I play up the male bonding opportunity "it's just the guys now, man, we're going to have an amazing time". He seems to bite. The ski-lift is fun, but up on the mountain I'm reminded of why I decided to quit skiing all these years ago - my feet begin to hurt intolerably in my boots. No time to think about that, I need to motivate Lior, can't show signs of weakness. We start going down, my skills are surprisingly good and Lior is doing great, but at the bottom of the run I feel like I can barely stand in my boots. Lior is starting to complain about the cold. His hands are indeed frozen to the touch, so I do my best to warm them up, but he starts to get upset. It's a fragile moment, another setback can finish our day. I try to put his gloves back on, but his pinky refuses to slide into place. We try again, and again, and again, to no avail. He is now in complete melt-down mode. We stand there for 23 minutes (even in the bleakest moments I manage to notice the time) trying to put the glove back on. Finally, after blowing, massaging, maneuvering, the glove is in properly. We descend the mountain again, but by now Lior has lost all desire to perform any reasonable ski turns and simply slides down in the snow-plow position, my feet are a catastrophe and as I ski down I dream of the moment when I take my boots off, "it's just like the ending of '12 years a slave' when he finally gets released", I'm hallucinating. We make it back to the village and meet up with Noa and Nomi. As we munch on our egg-salad sandwiches I get the following report: Nomi is content but Noa isn't. Her feet are also killing her. No more ski for her that day. Lior seconds that motion. I go up for one pleasant run with Nomi but by the end of it my feet need to be released from these boots already.

We ended up switching boots, went up the next day (this time later, so everyone was more relaxed) and spend the day skiing together. It was great fun. My feet still hurt but it was more tolerable. We decided for forgo our third day and went hiking instead.

So here are my thoughts on skiing - it can be fun, when everything is perfect - the equipment works, the weather is favorable, and everyone's in a good mood. But even then, the overhead is overwhelming - so much time spent getting there, getting ready, going up the lifts, and it's so expensive. Here is an efficiency formula for experiences: pleasure/(time+cost).
Ski rates pretty low on that scale.

When we got back I went to play indoor soccer the same day. It took me 15 minutes to get there and 10 more minutes to put my shoes on and get warmed up, than I had great fun for 2 hours and it took me 15 more minutes to get home. The cost was $10. Much more efficient.

Hummingbird

The other day a hummingbird flew into our house. I was just about to leave, opened the front door, and what seemed like a huge bug just flew over my head towards our dining room light. We quickly realized that it was a hummingbird - this most amazing creature that can hover in space, flapping it's wings up to 80 times a second. The bird was in obvious distress and so were we. We opened the windows and the door to allow the bird to fly out, but it kept flying inside the house, from room to room, around our light fixtures. When it flew by a window it kept banging on the glass instead of taking the available opening. Finally it flew into the kitchen, hit the wall and fell behind some bottles. There was no further movement behind the bottles and we all thought that what started as an exciting encounter came to a sad ending. At this point I noticed some interesting differences between my kid's reactions. Lior, my five year-old boy, when realizing that the bird wasn't moving and was probably dead, couldn't wait to come closer and look at the dead creature. He was very curious and not at all sad. Nomi, my ten year-old girl, stepped away and started crying inconsolably. "we killed it" she kept saying. Back to the bird - Noa, my wife, without a moments hesitation, picked up a large jar, scooped the bird inside and released it outside. The hummingbird was up in the air in a flash, and immediately disappeared out of sight - a happy ending.  After congratulating my wife for her swift actions I went on with my business, not before exclaiming "it's considered good luck when a hummingbird flies into your house". This wasn't according to any tradition that I knew, but I felt that Nomi needed something extra to help her calm down from what was obviously very traumatic for her. I was struck by her ability to identify with the tiny creature and it was in complete contrast to Lior's total lack of empathy for the bird. It could be an age thing - we all start life as sociopaths and learn to become empathetic to others as life progresses. But It's obviously also a gender thing as women sociopaths are very rare.  I'm not concerned about Lior's ability to empathize, he is a very loving boy, with an ever growing concern for others, It's just interesting to see how the small sample size that we have in our home can reflect larger social tendencies. Yesterday, we all went out to beautiful Iona beach and while Noa and Nomi (with her friend Deven) spent their time enjoying the beautiful scenery and looking at the birds, me and Lior spend three hours searching for the best driftwood 'guns', and then proceeded to kill each other over and over again - boy stuff.