3/28/10 Clean Up Day

We didn't go skiing today.  It was overcast and cold.  I said I would only go if it was sunny and warm enough to soften the snow.  No diceola.  Instead I decided to clean up the yard.  You see all of the snow has melted at the Hill House leaving big piles of construction shitola all over the property.  Kim informed me she was going for her walk.  I said put on your work cloths babe because we are about to get dirty before the rain comes.  She was very hesitant at first but could tell by the look on my face that I wasn't going to take no for an answer.  I tried to make it sound appealing like we would have a family day wondering the property with Lola.   We would just pick up a few pieces of trash.  You know, nothing big.  Easy.  Easy like a Sunday morning.  HAH, I trapped her.  She never knew what hit her.  Ask Juliana about houses.  She knows.

It looks like rain is in the forcast starting tonight.  We are going to give up on the skiing if that's the case.  That means I skied 35 days and Kim 31.  Lola skied one day down the driveway but we can't count that because she didn't have skis on.  I'll keep you posted on the rain,

Until then, Sarah

3/27/10 Mogul Challenge

What the hell?  That's what I say about the boarder patrol getting into policing the Bear parking lot entrance.  I felt like I was going in and out of Mexico.  Give me a break.  They corral us into a tiny drinking area where we can't even hear the band.  On top of that they have muzak coming from some bar speaker.  Why can't we be more like the Alps: throw your skis on the ground, walk all over every ones gear, find a lounge chair in the snow facing the sun, demand a white wine, and do it all while you are decked in Armani.  I was lucky to get a stinking Budwiser and find a seat on a bench under a Bud banner while a girl in a Giants jacket blew smoke in my face.

I would give today a ()1/2 because (like a women in the parking lot reminded me) at least we had sun and at least I was skiing.  It was colder than I expected today.  Luckily I threw an extra coat in the truck.  The mountain was dangerously skied off and chalk boardie.  Bear was really the only place to ski because it was the most in the sun.    We managed to get 10 sliding runs in.  It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow.  If that happens the snow would be great.  Of course a nice dumping would also do the trick.  Rain is in the forecast for Monday but maybe it will be snow instead.  That would be a nice surprise:)

Sarah

3/26/10 I'm back!

Lola just wondered on by.  She was barking in the living room trying to get us to come take her to bed.  If we won't put her to bed then she gives up and puts herself to bed.  Then she barks from the bedroom for us to join her.  Bark, bark.."please come to bed I love you both so much" she barks on endlessly.  It is really very appealing.  We want to join her  (at least I do!) but it's usually only 8:30 so I can't.  It wouldn't be socially acceptable to hit the hay before 10:00 on a Friday night, at least that is what I'm told.  I never really do what I want.  What I want to do is go to bed and sleep but sleep can't come to a hot flash type of gal.  It's just not happening.  Kim just said "you're going to sleep on the couch tonight right?"  I said "no MF I'm not!  I'm going to toss and turn all night and keep you up until your sinking ass matches the crack of dawn!"  Ok I didn't say that but I COULD HAVE!

I hope we can go skiing tomorrow and we hope it's not a sheet of ice like today.  It's been some strange weather out there.  It's going to be interesting to hit the slopes again after a week off.  My finger is in one of those metal cast type of deals so I don't know what that means for skiing but we will soon find out.

Tomorrow then,
Sarah

all about ski boots

ttp://www.spadout.com/a/ski-boot-stiffness-a-complex-measure/

3/18/10 The Day After

I'm really bumming.  We have to leave VT for awhile.  It's really, really beautiful here so I'm acting just like a flatlander and getting the hell out of dodge.  I wish I could draw with this computer so I could put a stick figure up with a big L on the forehead.  We don't have a choice.  After being up here for three solid months things need to be taken care of back on the old homestead.

Here are some pictures of last nights celebration.  Thanks to Becky for cooking the great meal!!!

I'll be back,

Sarah

3/17/10 HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO ALL YOU IRISH CATHOLICS!

I know a few people that fall into that category:  Mary Coyle, God bless her living soul.  Oh, and let me think hard here I'm scraping the barrel...oh Juliana is half!  I wonder if we should get Adam Sandler to do a song about who is Irish (or half)?  Instead of put on your yarmulke here comes Hanukkah he could write something like this:

Put on your shamrock here comes the beer?   What the hell rhymes with shamrock anyway?  Ok so let's try the second verse:

When you feel like the only kid in town
without a shamrock
here's a list of people who are Irish
just like you and me:  (speak for yourself ya Irish bastard ya!)

JFK was Irish
Yeats too
but no one from the Who

Shaw was ..  Ok enough already.  I have to go take a bath and soak my bones after 15 runs and using up 1200 calories on glorious, sunny skiing.  The party starts in an hour at our house and not a one of the guests is an Irish gal.  Shimmering Shamrock to that!

Sarah
(I'll be doing some jigging a little latter mattie!)

3/16/10 Tour and Sugaring

We skipped out on a beautiful sunny day of possibly great skiing for a tour of Woodstock and a bit of sugaring (maple syrup collection and production).  It was a trade off but I don't regret it even though I did look up at Killington longingly a time or two.

The first part of the day consisted of Becky driving us around pointing out a lot of beautiful houses and farms giving us small bits of gossip along the way.  The only problem was that she is just not enough of a Peyton Place type of chick.  Kim and I needed more gossip.  I'm sitting here watching American Idol so I'm going to critique Becky like an AI contestant.  "You just needed to put a little more feeling into it.  You needed to give us more, damn it!"  She promised to bone up on her tour guide responsibilities for next time.  I mean come on we need to know more along the lines of 'who's doing whom'.   She was, though, a great location scout.  Just judge for yourself.  Our pictures are attached.  We then proceeded to Long Trail Brewery for our free "lovely ladies lunch".

Kim and I dumped Becky (she couldn't wait to get out of the vehicle so she could take a nap to tune up for happy hour at her moms).  We then went to meet up with Alex at the Jenne Farm to check out the sugar maple trees.  Very cool.

We are back on the slopes tomorrow.  It's supposed to be 55 degrees and bright, bright sun.  YEAH!!!

Until then,

Sarah

3/15/10 No Ski Day

That's all I have to say...nothing, nada, aucun, for a ski day up here in a most beautiful VT.  It's been raining all day.  Of course the mountain claims they have had 10 inches of snow over the past two days.  I'm sure it's 10 inches of cement with some ice thrown in for good measure.

We are going for our free lunch at Long Trail Brewery tomorrow instead of skiing.  How you may ask did we manage to get a free lunch?  We met a man who is the boss of Long Trail while were eating at the P&P.  He wrote on the back of his card "Please give these lovely lady's a free lunch".  He didn't specify how many lovely ladies so we are going to bring Becky.  She's a lovely lady after all isn't she?  Becky is first going to give us an official tour of the Woodstock she grew up in.  

We'll go skiing on Wed. then we are off to Sagaponack to hang with Kitty and of course Juliana and Moxie (Zoe is going to Mexico with someone else):.  We are coming back up to spend time with Amy and Izzy for spring break.  The skiing should be full of sunshine and beer then.

Sarah

3/14/10 Zero

Good day to all you people of the United States of America.  I would hope I have foreign readers by now but I really don't think that could be possible yet.  If one of you readers is a foreigner please let me know. We have a saying here in the U.S. "having fun with foreigners".   If you are a foreigner and would like that explained before you get involved with the Hill House Gang then you better contact Coyle's husband.  He's probably out in the street right now hornning his horn.    Why are we called Americans anyhow?  Why aren't Brazilians or Canadians called Americans?  Why do we get to actually use the name of the America's in our title and no other country in the America's gets to use that title?  The hubris of it all I say.

Oh I forgot, this is just supposed to be a crummy little blog about the skiing up here on Killington Mountain (or should I say Broke Ass Mountain?)  It was a zero star day yesterday.  You got that right zero stars.  We tried. We should be given the gold medal for trying.  We picked up Amy and Eric at the back gondola at Killington in hopes of hitting better snow at Pico.  What a shit show that was.  Not only did they only have one run going (high winds) with only lots of nice green trails available but there was a lift line because of the special Olympics.   We then headed back to Killington and took a total of three torturous runs trying to find something decent to ski.  The last run down Super Star I thought it may be possible to die so I quit and headed for the bar.  Toooooo many yahoo's were heading  right for me.  It was like a shooting gallery and I was the target.  Just imagine very few runs open and bus loads of teenagers from New Jersey flying towards you in Jets jackets.  You get the picture.  After we hit the bar for lunch we headed over to Suicide Six to see some of the Special Olympics.  Of course, I didn't get any pictures of this cool event except for this Cat that the mountain must of purchased off of Mt. Bachelor.

It's worse today with the rain and all so we are staying home.  Alan and Bobby couldn't make it up here yesterday because of the storm on the East coast.  They tried to catch the ferry boat but it crashed into the dock because of the high seas.  That was their start to a very lovely day of sciatica and circular driving.

Until then,
Sarah

3/12/10 syrup

We haven't been skiing in two days.  No reason really but we had some little things to do.  We did go skiing on Wed. and I failed to write about it because we weren't suppose to be here and the day didn't end well.  ADT (always those idiots) had to come again but it was really sunny and warm.  What to do.  Leave a note telling them you are right down the street and to call you when they read the note, that's what you do.  I called them when I was on top of Super Star to see about their ETA.  No way we could make it before they slipped away so screw it.  Nothing better than skiing on a sunny day with no wind.

Ok back to my previous statement "didn't end well."  You see the problem was all about...oh never mind.  Let's go on to something more appealing like our new neighbors coming over for cocktails tonight including a couple that we met last night after a of couple of cocktails or that we are going to go tapping the trees with our electrician any day now.

We are going skiing with Amy and Eric in the morning.  Bobby and Alan are coming up tomorrow night for a few days.  Always a good time.

Sarah

3/9/10 A New Day

I've decided that we are going to leave Vermont for awhile.  It's a long story but it partially has to do with my writing. Some people aren't in favor of it.  No it's true.  Hard to believe but true.   C'est vrai...or is that si c'est vrai?  You can see what they mean, right?

I'll leave you with this: today was a () snowball day because the best way down the mountain was Carpenter's Run.  Which means the best way home was a green slush run.  Tomorrow is always better unless it rains.

Until then,

Sarah

3/7/10 Mt. Peg

We climbed Mt. Peg today with the dogs because of course I've sustained yet another injury.  I have jammed, sprained, fractured or all of the above my index finger.  I can not grip a pole.  Let me tell you how this happened although it's taking me forever to type.  I bent down to pick up my ski and hit my binding.  It was enough to say "shit" but not really anything big.  Now I'm looking at a finger that looks like a..well, I don't really know what it looks like but it's big.

Loser with a big L.   It's beautiful here right now.  Sick of typing.   See ya.

Sarah

3/6/10 Pico

Did a few runs in the Pico sun then we went to listen to the band out on the deck.  Really nice weather.  Nice snow.  I'll let the pictures tell the story.  Going to tele tomorrow.  Hopefully Pam, Lizzie and Becky will join us for some fun in the sun.    () () () 1/2

Sarah

Beautiful Friday 3/5/10

ADT never showed.  Surprise, surprise.  They say they said Monday.  Liars!!!  Any hoot we stacked wood and shoveled the driveway.  We are mountain women hear us roar.  We didn't get to the slopes until after noon but boy was it worth it.  The snow was the same as yesterday but the weather just made it all so beautiful.  Regarde the picture (bandaid is from slapping trees):

We were taking a run down Vertigo when two F-18's buzzed us.  They were so close we could almost smell that military beer breath I'm oh so familiar with.  They were flying inverted (for all you non miliary type that means upside down).  I hope no one reports them because it was an awesome sight.  And thank the ski gods that this time they didn't take out any gondola cable!

Today was () () () 1/2 kind of snowball day.  Tomorrow calls for even more sun.

Until then,
Sarah

3-4-10 greetings from your Navajo sister:

11 runs and 800 calories.  Lots of bumps.  Lots of knee pain.  The snow was generally soft but the bumps are, well, still bumps.  Best run was Sky Hawk.  Worst run was Royal Flush.  For some reason there were areas of loose ice lumps...not generally my fav if you know why I mean.  Kim is just getting over her cold that she caught from me or directly from the GBGG.  It's hard to tell.  I heard GBGG is down in Mexico.  Now that he has polluted Vermont he's hanging in the Mexican sun while I'm still spitting goobers over the chairlift.    Thanks GBGG.

We can't go skiing until tomorrow afternoon because we have to wait for ADT to come and fix the alarm in the morning.  I was first concerned when I lit a fire and the smoke was so bad I thought I was back in the tear gas tank in the Marine Corps but still the alarm didn't go off.  Then we lost power for 24 hours and ni a call from the bastards.  What's up you may ask?  You can't expect much when you pay top dollar.  Why pay less is my motto right Jules?  So come one come all you thieves out there.  The Hill House is ripe for the picking.

() () () today.

Sarah

3/3/10 No skiing today so I'll just post my research for today.

The mtDNA of Sarah Lynn Ferguson was compared to a dataset of 152 populations in 9 journals (Location 16090 to 16340). The closest matches in a set of 152 populations are listed in the table below:

Native Americans, Southwestern North America	RMI: 50.000
Navajos, United States (Navajo Indian Reservation)	RMI: 36.544
Apaches, United States (White Mountain Apache Reservation)

3/2/10 Suicide Six

We didn't ski yesterday..had to recover.  Becky and I went to Suicide Six for the two for one special today.  It worked out to be $20 a piece but of course Becky paid.  She's very generous that way.  Becky hadn't been on skis for some years but managed to look like she was just on them yesterday.  We did 5 runs on some very cute runs.  The snow was decent.  The lodge is adorable.  What a great place for kids.  Didn't need much clothing because the sun was out.  I wish I would have had sun glasses vs. goggles.  

I think Becky will be ready to get back up to Killington soon.  She'll get used to those new fangled short skis soon enough!

Sarah