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Voila Le Meteor Crater.
Am working on the long form entry now!
xoxox

Summer Itinerary

Some of you asked about the plans and so here goes for future reference.

Thursday is Arizona for Crater - palooza which I believe will be the best blogging of the summer. The professor wrote to Jim O. who cced us and he is exactly who I want to be when I grow up. I have taken the liberty of posting some of his incredible email to Jim (when Jim asked if he would meet Frederick in Arizona). He was a geo chemist but a very serious amateur astronomer as well. I believe he is almost 90. I really may run off with him.


 I just finished leading my 31st raft trip for the general public through Grand Canyon and have scheduled my 32nd for May 2019.  My geology-oriented trip has become somewhat famous and usually fills almost immediately. It isn’t me; it’s the surreal world of the Grand Canyon! I am also on the Board of Directors of the Death Valley Natural History Association and am helping to get more geology and natural history field trip offerings for them.  In fact, I led their first ever 2 ½ day “Geology Discovery Tour” last January and will expand on that this year and in the future. That is an amazing place and I love showing people things there they never imagined.  It is another surreal world. I’m also writing a weird book about a raft trip through Grand Canyon, then by jeep across the Great Basin to the southern end of Death Valley, up its axis to exit at the northwest end, and then on up to climax along the crest of the Sierra Nevada near Tioga Pass.  It’s all about the grand themes of geology (and science) exposed best in those places and what it all means for the human psyche. Probably not publishable, so I may just put it on the internet.  It is something erupting out of me, and I enjoy working on it daily. Other than those 3 places, I no longer desire to travel.  I even just turned down an invitation to visit Macquarie University in Sydney to hang out all expenses 


We were fortunate to have been in the business when it wasn’t business and when isotope geochemistry was young. I’ve been memorizing Shakespeare soliloquies and poems by others to fight off the mental decline everyone says must come. Shakespeare comes in surprisingly handy; I wish I had started earlier in life. I’m also delving deeply into the origins of mathematics and how we try to quantify nature. That is a daily revelation.  That science came to a universe that blew out of pinhead--nay, not so much, not a pinhead…an infinitesimal point, a singularity 13.772 billion years ago (at 4:30 in the afternoon?) and is composed of >90% mysterious, invisible matter and energy….really, there has to be something else.  I’m suspecting these likely erroneous conclusions arose for the same reason the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox arrives at a nonsense conclusion.  But I digress…

Then:
The 25th-30th in London

30th we fly to Portugal, until about the 26th, when we tour LMU in Munich and then meet the Wehlens in Turkey for a float until August 4th. Then a few days in Istanbul; and then we have a week to kill, so I think we may swing by Lech and see those Schneiders...back up to Hamburg for a visit with the old Aunts, and on the QM2 on the 17th of August, home on the 26th.

The last week here was crazy- a lot of parties and then a friend in from out of town whom I love- rushing around showing her and her son SF. I tried to get her to look out the window but we had so much to talk about...Trump, husbands, Lech, the important things.
It always amazes me how close you can feel to people whom you rarely see.

Ok next note from the desert. xxx

11th Grade in the Books

First sight of the Bay below him as he woke. 

Got the kid; he is beside me sleeping now. He has slept across Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and New York and Ohio. We tried to wake him for food, but he couldn't lift his head, so he slept over the Dakotas and Wyoming too. He wants to watch the Warriors when we land.

11th grade is notoriously difficult at any school, and indeed this year he has climbed quite a hill: eight standardized tests (with two more APs to go); the dreaded history 333 and a chemistry class popularly known as death chem. But he has also had sublime moments of learning like when his teacher had office hours in the observatory, and told F to look at Jupiter. He was giddy when he called us afterwards: "I saw three of her moons!"

Traditionally, on the night before the last day of school, the kids stay up all night bidding goodbye to the seniors. Each one hears reminiscences about himself, and they tell each other things that have perhaps not been said. He said many kids break down: big hockey players and skinny kids from Hong Kong weeping and telling each other thank you and goodbye. Frederick said prep year it was more like watching movie stars, people who were so removed from you, that you couldn't really feel sad. But as he gets older, it gets sadder- he is friends with the seniors now. I can only imagine what next year will be like for him, my sentimental Teuton with Wentworth in his blood.

I am listening to the prettiest Bob Dylan version of a song that I had never heard before: Canadee-I-O. It's about a girl who stows away to see distant lands and have an adventure, but when the sailors find her they want to kill her. She is  eventually saved by the captain and by all accounts they go on to live happily ever after. It seems somehow appropriate now: an ode to people who want to see the broader world (both the physical and the universe of the mind) and are willing to risk discomfort to do it.

Speaking of discomfort- Margaret and I witnessed something amazing at crew practice. Charlie asked us if we would come watch him row his 2k test. We entered the beautiful old boathouse, where a single rowing machine was set up in the semi darkness. (It had the gloomy drama of an electric chair.) Charlie was nervous- pacing around with his head down, but insisting we stay despite our reluctance. His teammates were speaking softly to each other and to him, and one quietly put a garbage can behind the machine. This we later learned, was for the vomit. It seems that in the world of crew, the only thing that matters- (indeed two colleges already called him over this one tiny number) is the amount of time it takes him to row 2 kilometers on an erg machine. It's crazy in its simplicity and brutality. So he gets on and is rowing what looks like a slow pace. All around him are people cheering quietly while the coxswain is pacing him "Good Charlie, long strong strokes. Good Charlie 1:27 keep this exact pace. Good Charlie, you have got this." It moves me how he keeps using his name.
Good Charlie. I'm here.

And then comes the hardest part- the last two minutes when the lactic acid is putting him in agony. More kids come around; they are excited at the pace he is setting and they start to really cheer. They are clapping and yelling and the coxswain's voice is above all of them keeping him on pace. I noted to Margaret that Charlie's pace is a direct threat to their position on the team and perhaps with the colleges; but you wouldn't know it, the way they are ecstatically cheering him on-urging him to not stop, telling him they are with him. And then amid all the screaming and cheering Charlie finishes and falls off the machine. I'm telling you, I had tears in my eyes.

Youth is wasted on the young isn't it? ....they don't realize that there aren't many times in life when one is doused in friendship like that; with love flowing down over your head; and a vomit bucket conveniently behind your back.

Cookies

Sorry about the notices when you sign in...but nothing has in fact changed. fear not.
xx

Summer Coming Soon

Countdown begins. Prepare thyselves for: Queen Mary (from Hamburg!!); an independent study on crater distributions on Mars vs our Moon vs the Earth.
and much more..

Meanwhile enjoy the video of Ellie on her now ever present Lime scooter. Life changing San Francisco trend.

In Se Gloria Coruscare

Ok here is the PEA status update. F is happy. He is in the last position of the top ladder in tennis- says a strong breeze could blow him off and into the B squad, but for now he is psyched. He is taking the dreaded history 333 - a rite of passage in 11th grade where they have to write a very long paper. In it he will tackle the Cuban missile crisis.  He is finishing up the second part of calculus, and if they let him skip again over the summer, he will be in something called multi variant blah. Apparently every 8 year old South Korean applying to the schools Frederick wants to apply to is at this level. But it has been quite a game of catch up coming from Town school. We met with his college counselor who looked grave when describing what Frederick wanted to sign up for next year. She kind of said other smart kids had landed "bad" grades when they tried to take both of these physics at the same time (Modern and Quantum). She was very kind, but warned us that if he got a B in any of them, he wasn't going to get into the MITs or Caltechs. Thomas' eye roll could be heard a mile away. There is little he finds more annoying than avoiding something hard because you might get your ass kicked. If the kid wants to risk a black eye- that's good isn't it?  I remembered this great line from our history teacher's speech at graduation: Rather than collecting medals- you should be collecting scars.
But I still weasly asked Frederick what he was thinking...."what's wrong with a little theater class????" Anyway Down in a blaze of Glory as they say. (see Latin translation above).

On his birthday he was taken well care of by the merry band at Wentwoth- little presents with inside jokes were dropped at his door. I just hope "cool beans" doesn't mean opiods dropping tonight on floor two.

We took the cousins and Will to dinner and Will scored so big on the bday gift. In honor of Frederick's flying lessons, he is now Amelio Earhart. Too funny. Then we had this incredible night of spirited discussion...specifically Did we really need to drop two atom bombs on Japan? or would one have sufficed? We could not get rid of them. Check-in was looming, and yet they stayed debating on and on. Really its the coolest thing- they are these amazing listeners. It's great because it means I can interrupt everyone all night with impunity.

 The one I am worried about is Thomas: he is already saying how sad he will be when this is over. We handed over this skinny young thing and he is quickly morphing into this adult who knows things.

Cool Beans as they say at the Tworth

gotta run.... Ill add more gossip as I remember it.

MIT pirates ships

Charlie modeling the look

Phillips Exeter Academy's finest

Part of the new indoor sports thing. 

seen at Hanna's dorm. Not exactly the vibe at Frederick's

stole a hug in between homework

Alaska

I am trying to send the updates from Thomas' and Andrew's Alaskan adventure. So far so good- they skied until 8 pm the first day. Today there are grounded due to weather. Below is Thomas' email. Mormon skiers! who knew?

In the meantime (in case you didn't see it on instagram) here is what they have been up to while not skiing.

The scenery here is absolutely spectacular. Snow is good and the group mostly non drinking Mormons or recovering non drinkers. Some pretty funny stories involving the teenage years of a “recoverer”. Mike thinks group is extremely “tame”. Some very good skiers, but a little like Lech in that they like/need their beauty sleep to perform ‘at the highest level’. The skiing is obviously great, but there is a little bit of a rush to catch the helicopter....due to attempt to keep gas guzzling down.

Off to go “fat tire biking” now. Bad visibility has stopped play.

See attached. LIFO.... miss you soooo much

Btw. No running water in our cabins!!? Have to shower in main building...or use wet washcloth....

The Goose is Loose (!) a few photos added..(sorry too cold to take hands out of my pocket)

proof of teenage life. 

OK here I am…! I waited to write the Chicago edition until we had seen both schools. 

I’ll do the overview of the schools first because you people seem on the edge of your seats; and then you can skip the part on Chicago if you need to.

Northwestern was surprisingly wonderful. I know! I am also surprised. The presentation offered up a vision of a school of smart kids who may not know what they want to do with their lives when they enter, but here they will be taught and mentored and cheered on until they do. Then a perfect internship in Mexico City or New York City will be arranged, and they will graduate with a job and a strong sense of self and some of the best friends a person could ask for. It’s what a school would be like if well-meaning, evolved parents of millennials started a school for their 5,000 children: challenging and nurturing, yes. But libraries would also be closed for one day the week before finals so you can attend a concert, because you need to blow off steam for God’s sake. And take your vitamin D…!

I am not kidding, it was laughably perfect. Which means of course that it is probably not for us. Thomas really liked it, but wondered aloud how a person would survive in the wild after this. 

University of Chicago by contrast is darker, smarter, and older. It is ivy covered and gothic; oak paneled and gorgeous. Where Northwestern had little sailboats patiently waiting on the beach  for spring to come, U Chicago is surrounded by of the worst neighborhoods in the United States. But we were pleasantly surprised by how un scary the neighborhood seemed. Security is everywhere- even off-campus there are these little panic buttons you can push and the police will come in one minute flat.  Clearly it is a bigger league school for science- It is basically MIT in Chicago…all very bad ass but more mid western and humble about it. The unofficial motto is “where fun comes to die” and I can see it, but the kids were so nice- we got asked if we needed directions, and given lots of genuine hellos. Frederick says his fantasy schools are still that little one in Pasadena or that one in England, but he would be happy at either of the Chicago schools. So all in all a good trip. 

Ok now a little on the city itself where we stayed in the “second best hotel in the United States.” The first best is, apparently in Lanai, which means it is not as good if you grade on a weather curve. But seriously the Peninsula is excellent- service is Austrian-ish and the beds are perfect and they pretty much think of everything. 

Here is the bad news on Chicago: the weather, obviously (more on that later), the flatness, and the Starbucks vs Peet's ratio. Oh and that ridiculous pizza. The good news is the prices, some of the food, the lake (surprisingly because I don’t gravitate towards things without a tide) but most of all- the people and the comedy. Chicago is very kind and very funny. It is odd how nice the people are- they chat and let you go first and ask if you are lost. Perhaps the lower rents just cheer everyone the hell up. I decided to try to reciprocate and gave a perhaps overly jolly hello to some people who were coming out of Banana Republic as F and I were going in. Then I complimented myself by saying how I was blending right in. His retort was as solid as any he has made in the last few years: “No mommy, you didn’t look like them, you look like a New Yorker who is having the third best day of her life”. 

Second city is the famous improv group started by some University of Chicago students and where basically every person you have ever seen on Saturday night live (as well as Stephen Colbert) got his start. It’s this little theater and a group of six do little skits mixed in with improv. We made a pilgrimage.

For one skit the group got on stage and said they were three couples at a dinner party, each with a secret . Then they asked the audience to tell them what that secret was. The audience yelled out ‘getting divorced’, ‘wanting a six-some’; and ‘changing their name to Neil’. Now, as a person who grew up around funny and has a keen sense of what it is…this was like watching Tiger Woods hit a six irons at the driving range. It was repeated perfection. 

You are laughing with one part of your brain, while the other part is just gaping at the genius. I tired so hard to figure out how they do it- how does one half of the couple so seamlessly get the gist of what the other is trying to do? The Neilses were the funniest- it was just so ridiculous. Their take was they were named Slivowitch and they wanted to pick the sexiest possible name, so they went with Neil. An added twist was they were just bursting with pride over it, and didn't want to let it out just yet. It was just insanely funny and brilliant and the speed so warped that you had no choice but to sit back and say: “God might live; and he seems to be in a good mood.” 

What else? Oh the weather…. Chicago was having a semi heat wave, with temperatures around 40. But of course that means nothing, because of the wind off of the lake: if that is blowing, all bets are off. Weirdly the cold seems to follow you around too- when you get back to your fluffy hotel room, you are still cold. Because people still have their gooses on, the restaurants are also freezing. Thomas broke down and bought one, and not being able to resist, I bought a smaller goose and wore two on Michigan avenue. The saleslady told us (I told you they were chatty) that the store is like the Chicago commodities trading floor back in the day where you could get killed while trying to buy corn futures. She says once the store had a gas leak and people wouldn’t stop shopping. One guy grabbed her by her shirt and and told her to keep selling because he wanted 10 (list price- $13,000). 

The production is all very Canadian: the coyote fur for the collar comes from coyotes who are humanely killed while sung lullabies, and same for the geese. And when a color runs out, it is out. No going to a Vietnamese sweatshop to make more. It’s Canadian grandmothers who sew and no one else. 

Some other moments- the Wehlen trio does not buy the whole deep dish pizza thing. It offends both our wimpy caloric maximum, and our love of ratios. The cheese to bread to topping ratio on a Chicago deep dish is a joke. I mean it: they are making fun of you. 

So I did my research on the best pizza in Chicago.

The concierge told me he understood: he too preferred thin crusts. He too was sick of being pushed around by deep dish lovers. Then he said the most compelling words a concierge can say: ‘it is usually a long wait, but we can get you in. Also we heard somehow, (although Thomas and I are arguing about where that was) it was Oprah’s favorite. We are excited; I am cocky. I actually ask the team to thank me and give me hive fives because Mommy did it again. 

In retrospect there were ominous signs all around us. First there were televisions on every wall, like in a sports bar. There are TV’s in basically every restaurant in Chicago- and it’s a mood killer. Even if you have absolutely no interest in the penguins vs the antelopes of Canada, you will stare over your kids head like a crazed fan.  And the second sign was that they called a ‘Margarita pizza’ a ‘cheese’ pizza. Thomas kept mentioning this, but I ignored him because I was ordering cheap red wine and talking to the owner about Oprah- rapping about thin crust and how cool it was and how deep dishers just didn’t get it. The owner tells me that this pizza was rated the best in Chicago, and the fourth best in the country. (the specificity!) I ask for more high fives. 

So they eventually bring the pizza in what was an almost comical Ta DA!!!!! and it is merely a slightly shallower deep dish. Thomas tells me in German that they have brought the wrong one and I need to tell them. But no. This is the thin crust pizza. This is as thin as they get in Chicago. It is so bad after such a huge build up that it feels like we are on candid camera. We ate a little and then lied to the man and said we had had chemo that day and couldn’t do more, but we definitely needed a to-go bag, yes even for a hotel room; gosh thanks so much. And then we did garbage tourism and threw it out -the world famous, Oprah favorite, can’t believe we got a table there Chicago thin crust pizza. 

I guess we don’t speak Chicago. But they really are lovely people- and even when they don’t think they want to make you laugh, they do. 

Ill post the photos later…but it was so cold, we didn’t take many. 

At tragically hip Dark Matter coffee shop

Taken out of the window of the bus

Northwestern University where it was so windy the guide had to yell. Thomas and I in the back plotting our escape.

One measly photo.....

Sorry I didn't post from Jackson, was too busy being slapped around by the mountain. Here we are on a run called Toilet Bowl. I really need to get more flattering ski pants...Tricia may be cold, but she looks way better.

In other news, have you guys seen the Netflix series from Israel called Fauda? The main character is an Arab Israeli that I have a serious crush on...especially after I heard that he was actually in the special forces and is now an actor. We just finished season one; get on it people. But make sure you don't watch it dubbed- got to hear the original languages.

I'll send more photos when they come.

Announcement Announcement Announcement!

My classmates from Miss Burke’s School told me I used to come into class and say that - as if I had a serious thing to say being the class presy... I have no memory of this.
But! I now have an actual announcement!
Charlie will be on 90.5 tomorrow night 8-9 pm New Hampshire time.
Get to your radios people.
Meantime listen to the song ‘Brazil’ I sent you, to get into the tortured teenage mind.

So excited. Love radio. Love. Radio.

Xo from 30,000 feet

testing- now I think it's working....

Indulge me- am experimenting to see if I can finally attach videos to El Blog. Tonight is the Exeter reception...Y'all are invited at 6pm. Yes, there will be a a few type As, but also some truly wonderful type Cs, AND a few teachers- one of them from the physics department (hmm..maybe need to re think the outfit. I do love to talk about the stars while standing under them.)

Attached (inshallah)  is a really good song 'Brazil' the angst filled teenagers played on WPEA.....It makes very little sense.
Or does it?

I'm faithless now though we win
Every time and I don't know how-
'Cause I haven't bought you
And I haven't sold me

But the people are dying to get on TV
I heard he lives down a river somewhere
With six cars and a grizzly bear
He's got eyes, but he can't see
Well, he talks like an angel but he looks like me


Brazil

Oh one last thing...I cannot see who reads this, but I can see the number of hits on each entry. And do you know the all time winner ? The average is maybe 50 views..and one was over 500.
And it was the photograph of Frederick's calculations on why the electoral college was- let's call it suboptimal....Isn't that heartening? It means the Russian robots are checking out the blog!!! xxoxo

WPEA

You guys have to get on this... 90.5 WPEA and it can be heard on your fancy internet radios.
ACB called me on Friday night saying Charlie was on- I was at a restaurant so I missed it, but apparently he was dragged there by two friends who had a gig and needed him to help them with the banter. Duck to water is all I can say- he said the hour went by like it was a minute; and now he might have his own show in the spring! a sports based one I think... (with possibly taciturn German cousins as guests.) Andrew and I are obsessed with radio and we are determined to fulfill all our radio producing fantasies from afar. We speak about all the ideas we have for his time on the air. Here is one- a segment where you "better get to know..." and he can start off with the kids in Math 999- the class offered to kids who have taken everything else, and need another. Each year it is different, it is just whatever they want to teach with whomever is qualified to take it. Frederick speaks in hushed tones about a kid in a trench coat who played guitar and was in that class. The kids suspect it is taught in the middle of the night with blood instead of chalk.

Anyway the station is downright addictive...the kids are so smart and nice to each other; and I love their angst filled music choices. For anyone missing those three knuckleheads like I do (don't know why it's worse at the moment..). it is a salve. I listened for a long time last night as I made my turkey bolognese (excellent) after a nice little 12 mile walk in frigid winds. There were three kids on- one was in a super selective a cappella group and she sang for a while; another was born and raised in Paris; another was...dunno..but all were just so adorable talking about their advisors and then the government shut down and so blessedly free of ranting or heavy opinions. And then the best part- they signed off because even though they sounded like real DJs, they had to get back to the dorm before curfew.

(Charlie with a microphone!!! it's too good..)

photo of an elusive teenager

At the Boston Fine Arts museum, trying to see the depth in the black. 

Happy MLK day.....it's very quiet at the office, so I thought I would put up the only photo we took of F over break. (Thank God for MMB, otherwise we would have very little record of his childhood.) I am procrastinating because PEA wants the parents to write a recommendation for their own children to help the college counselor better know the kid. Thomas is of course ducking, so it's on me. 

Luckily I have at least chosen the musical soundtrack for writing it- Scott Joplin's 'Solace-a Mexican Serenade'. My father would have approved of course- he played Scott Joplin all the time, especially in his car when he took us for drives after dinner in Inverness. He was probably a little tipsy, and Scott Joplin is perfect for nostalgia-  there is just no other music that is so sad and comforting at the same time. But make sure you don't listen to just anyone...it has to be Joshua Rifkin. His version of Solace is the only one that's played slowly enough. 

Writing about Frederick's odyssey is going to be tough-the cushier the journey, the harder it is to make interesting. He thinks he would like to study the stars or maybe just physics, and he wouldn't mind if he never had to take another English class again. He thinks people in general, and his parents in particular, should be doing more for humanity (he tells us this often). He himself doesn't do much in this regard; but his argument is he isn't even allowed to vote, and he has a 9 pm curfew. 

Point taken. 

I think the best thing I can say about Frederick having had an abundant childhood filled with uncles and travel with lots to eat and warm houses to eat in, is he doesn't see the world as a zero sum game. At his core he believes there is enough to go around- so he doles it out, helping other students in class and paying for their hamburgers.  He is a good tipper that kid. 

Might not be enough for MIT; but it's enough for me. 

xx

I heart Canada and Their Goose

Apres le deluge.....

".....one doesn’t pretend to do battle against a blizzard. You submit. Surrender. Hunker down. A snowstorm rewards indolence and punishes the go-getters, which is only one of the many reasons it’s the best natural disaster there is. " In Case of Blizzard, Do Nothing 
David Dudley NYT, January 22 2016

You might have heard we had a little snow storm yesterday. Phillips Exeter Academy cancelled classes (a rarity); and much else-including the Boston airport, basically shut down. The snow was going sideways in sheets of white, piling up while we ate breakfast; then Thomas put on his ski pants and announced he was going jogging.

He really should be studied under a microscope. (I went to the gym in the hotel, and that was cold enough.) To give you an idea of how ridiculous his instinct was, the waiter, a local and total blase about snow, was rendered speechless. "But you will slip on the ice....?" What he doesn't know is Germans do not fear ice unless it is in their drinks; cold drinks on a hot day weaken the character.

The day before the storm, I purchased a jacket from Canada Goose that I had wanted forever- but could never really justify the cost. These coats are famous around here and come in five levels of warmth: numbers one and two are spring in Boston level. Three and four will work for temperatures down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. And five is for the family re union in the Arctic circle. No one has ever actually been seen buying a five. It's just whispered about in the stores in the Back Bay.

I went for the four- and the guy told me it was warm enough to wear with nothing but a t shirt on the storm day. And I said: "Wow", but I was thinking; "thanks for the tip but...I intend to add every single piece of clothing I have brought, including long underwear and the hotel bathrobe with this baby. More is more."  We drove Frederick back to school before the storm hit. (he went back to school for Thursday and Friday, with plans to come back to Boston for movies and dinner over the weekend.) A nice family drive into the country with me so packed in Canada goose down and four seasons terry cloth that it was a challenge to put the seat belt on.
Well you can see where this is going - at first, I kept rolling down the window; with, dare I say it, increasing levels of crabbiness. Then I felt something approaching what Joan of Arc must have felt as they burned her alive. Poor Thomas, I don't know how he could drive with me ranting in Latin and my clothes piled on his head like that..."Hold the cross high so I may see it!!!!!!"

So storm day comes and I have the coat and Thomas has jogged. We are ready, We are pumped. Actually I am not pumped at all, having just read a wonderful article about surrendering to storms and just laying low, (see above). I reference this article and its sound point of view to my husband. Hopeless. Unless it's a Russian winter (sorry had to do it) there is no surrender with these people, so out to lunch I must go.

The coat is a dream- I love it more than any of you, it is my heart and soul, but with the fur hood up I literally can see nothing that is not an inch in front of me. Thomas kept calling me his little u boot  (periscope humor) So here I am an absolute cripple...albeit a warm one- and have to negotiate icy bricks and flying chunks of snow, or maybe they were people, and huge snowdrifts at the curbs and that is not even including the cars which cannot stop and I cannot see.  But because we are Wehlens and this is fairly familiar to anyone who has skied off piste in Lech,  we thought it was all very jolly. hahahaha. And it was kind of fun until we stumble to the restaurant and find it closed, and we have to find another one.

The best visual is a scene from a documentary about Emperor penguins who have to survive the winter months in the South Pole. They are sort of walking forward, but the wind is so strong, it's hard to tell. Thomas has denied this in the inquiry that followed, but he came very close to abandoning me to the elements after it was clear I could not see with the hood up, but was unwilling to take the hood down. We were maybe six blocks from the hotel, and yet I had semi serious concern that we would not make it. Crazy.

The next day the snow stopped and the real cold came, and this is worse. It is f-ing freezing. I am pretty warm in the coat, but my face is exposed, because at some point I have to actually look up.  Thomas keeps going outside...God bless his heart...he thinks maybe his blood will thicken if he just concentrates hard enough. The problem is the homeless- every time I walk by I hand them 20 dollars, but Thomas carries $100s, and these he doles out all the way down Bolyston street. I am not making this up: he left for yet another excursion to the bank and returned with nearly frost bitten hands, and -you guessed it- no money. There are pictures of Thomas circulating around town now...homeless people are naming their pets after him. I don't know how much longer we can afford to stay.

Thomas running outside after the snow stopped to "see what it was like"

Dreaded Sunday is here and I have to send Frederick back.  He seems rather serious about what is facing him work wise; like a small soldier before a long march. 💔

See you Tuesday, I'll be the one kissing the warm California ground.

Blessed coat. It's going in my will. 

new haircut; talking shop with his father. We don't have many years left where Thomas knows more about some things...

Out of the Comfort Zone

The problem with women is they don't go down like the whiskey.....

("sleeping outside" Chauncey Crandall)

The woman above is my mountain guide Lisi. She grew up in the Tyrol part of Austria (which is sort of Italy and sort of Austria), with views of looming, steep mountains from her crib. She is the youngest in her family with four older brothers; and a typical Sunday outing for them was climbing  a 300 foot cliff without ropes. Lisi says it wasn't a difficult climb, but if you fell, you died. 
But they didn't die; they had a little picnic instead. 

Lisi is a mountain guide, which is a level higher than Harumi; she can therefore take a person into the back country of Lech, and up Mount Everest.  She is best known as world class rock climber, and only the 8th or 9th woman ever to pass the arduous tests to become an International Mountain guide in Austria. This makes her an expert in avalanches, snow caves, igloos, ice climbing and skiing. I asked her about the examination. On the first day you have to ski for the instructors, and after just that short exercise, 50% are sent home. On her run she sort of went for it and was the fastest in horrible snow. She crashed in spectacular fashion, but only once she was behind the finish line. On another exam they had to build a cave in the snow and then sleep in it all night. And this is why I love Lisi: nowhere in the rule book did it say that cave had to be far from the bar. So they built the cave next to the hotel and went for many beers, then returned to sleep (sit up more like it) in the snow. In addition to her many fearsome skills, is her ability to drink me under the table, whether that be beer or coffee. 

There is no decaf in this girl. 

I can read the bubbles over your heads now: "why is a person like this taking Ellie skiing?" Good question. First, ski touring is the way mountain guides pay for their trips to Patagonia; but also they just love the mountains, and this is their way of proselytizing. If they like you, they want you to make peace with the fear, so you can be the best Ellie you can be. On this trip, Lisi would listen to my meek little opinions on why we should really re think the plan for the day (didn't Thomas say that last part was a nightmare??) and she would calmly say: "You must get out of your comfort zone....." and "not just for today; you must live there, Ellie, outside the zone." Then she would simultaneously check my pieps so she could find me should I get buried alive, and order us both a coffee. 

To ski with Lisi is to ski with a sort of God, and this is of course a bad thing (who wants to disappoint God?) I was horribly jet lagged for the first week and being in the snow first thing in the morning seemed like such a bad idea. But worship leads to trust, and trust leads to love, and love can finally silence the wimpy little voice in your head. Somewhere between skiing down the frozen waterfall and the taxi ride back to civilization, you come close to euphoria. You believe you will survive, and you are almost overcome with gratitude and joy and awe. You want to whoop and hug the sky, but you hug Lisi instead. And under the benevolent, ancient eyes of the mountain, you both laugh. 

Lisi told us that when she was very small she wept at fireworks because she thought they were blowing up the stars. And that's exactly who she is- a bad ass with a soft spot for stars. 

So in 2018 let's let WWLD? be our motto. Let's look out for stars. Let's be excellent and tell the truth and do what we say we will. Let's turn towards the discomfort- any kind, even if it's scary. 

Then, let's rejoice in the warmth of our beds and the steam from our cup. 

love you guys.

point of no return

this is it's own entry- by this point in the day i wasn't even scared, more rolling my eyes at her.....shows what three double expressi will do. 

one day when Thomas came along for a hike through the snowy woods

she looks happier than I do....