Susan's Lucky Week

Skier Days: Sara(48), Caroline(22), Susan(25), Charles(37)
Powder Days: Susan(3), Charles(2)

With things seemingly settled down at school and a routine in place, it seemed like a good week for Susan to stay up North and get a taste for mountain life.    Tuesday was a day off in Medford due to the special election to replace Senator Kennedy.   I was up early to prepare my weekly status report and work for a few hours before meeting with my manager.  It had continued to snow overnight and there was more scheduled so Caroline and I headed south just before lunch and made it home mid afternoon.   I stopped in for a few minutes to vote in the hope of salvaging the possibility of universal health care that would bring the US up to par with the rest of the developed world and rescue the economy.   I was back to work and Caroline spent the afternoon getting a leg up on her homework for the rest of the week.   Around dinner time Caroline and I went down to Whole Foods and stocked up on food for the week and brought home a little Sushi feast to get the week off to a good start.

Susan got to spend the afternoon making some sweet turns on some fresh snow.  Sara was back to a regular school and ski schedule after having Monday off.   The competition season started with Slalom followed up by Giant Slalom(GS) and this week they are progressing to Super Giant Slalom(Super G).   The progression in the format of these races is from tighter courses with more turning, to looser courses at higher speed.  As a 13 year old Sara is considered a first year J3(Junior under 15) and this is the first year that skiers compete at Super G.  Last year, as a J4, Sara got to try out Super G at "Speed Camp" and really loved it.   She immediately fell for the adrenalin rush and her coaches recognized in her the spark of love for speed.  That week is probably the one thing most responsible for hooking her on the sport and driving her to want to go to Gould.

The equipment for each of these races is also specialized.  The Super-G requires a longer more stable ski with a longer turning radius to match the longer distance between the gates.   The straighter stiffer ski does not wander as much and provides greater edge length to better handle the pressure generated by the skier in a high speed turn.   The only faster race than Super G is the Downhill.

Susan went to dinner with Megan and Adam and Sara ended up tagging along at the last minute as dinner plans didn't end up working out at school this Tuesday.  The $5 pizza night at the Matterhorn get a lot more expensive when you throw in a Celiac for whom the only appropriate thing on the menu involves steak.

Caroline and I fell into a routine quickly with me getting up early to work a bit, waking her and having breakfast,  a little homework, and then a walk to school.    Work, work work and then walk down to pick her up.   She brought home a friend from school which worked out well because they did homework together while I got back to it.    We made ourselves a yummy Lamb on the grill with a side of risotto.   Susan had another great day on the snow and caught up a bunch of errands that had been lagging.

We were all in mourning and slightly in shock at our new Republican Senator Brown from Massachusetts.   It seems the American people are very fickle when they are unemployed.  What stuns me is just how quick people are to vote against their own interests to "send a message".    In this case it is clear to me that my fellow citizens are not capability of thinking long term and the fear, uncertainty and doubt messages of the Republicans continues to work.  It does not help to dwell on what cannot be changed.  Caroline and I spent an hour watching a cake competition on the Food Network before crashing early.

Thursday was another day like Wednesday but with better sleep and an indoor soccer game at the end of it.   Caroline has been playing with the "Strikers FC" along with three of her regular teammates from the town team.  They have been winning all of their games handily and she has even scored a couple of goals.   This was the first game that they ran into an older and more accomplished opponent from the dreaded soccer powerhouse of Wilmington.   They managed to keep it close and lost only 3-0.  It was an 8pm game and Caroline was practically asleep before we got home.   I put her to bed, checked on a couple of things at work and crashed.

Friday was another ski day in paradise for Susan and Sara.  I was up early again and worked a couple of hours before getting Caroline up and walking her down to school.   Work, work, work and then back to Maine after school.

The family was reunited and Saturday was a bluebird day with lots of sunshine and the bluest of blue skies.  I did the "Race" group with our Black Diamond Group and we had a really nice course set up for us old timers on Wildfire.   I have been struggling a bit to get back to where we ended up last season on the race.  I started to feel better to day and Dave, our instructor/coach, is so enthusiastic it is hard not to improve.

After lunch I packed up my tripod, thanks to Grammy Ellie, and my good Camera in the back pack and dragged it up to the top of the Jordan lift with my co conspirator Steve.   We got some great panorama pictures including the one above of the Mahoosucs and the one below of the Presidentials that I assembled from five separate images using the Photo Stitch software that came with the Canon camera.

When I got home Kate was hanging out with Caroline.  We ended Saturday night down at the Shipyard at White Cap for our first Sunday River Ski Club event.  It was really great to hang out with all of the grown ups while the kids went tubing.  Caroline ended up brining her friend Colby home for a sleep over.  She is another really nice and polite kid and the they had an excellent time.  This is a really nice group of J5 girls.

Sunday we all had another good day on the hill.  I worked on my racing all morning and felt like I really had a breakthrough.  Caroline too felt that she had made some great strides and did very well on the timed runs that they did in training.   She we bubbly and happy when I picked her up and we skied home.

Caroline and Susan, ten straight days on the hill,  headed back to Medford and Sara and I settled into a little tidying up.  We watched the Colts beat the Jets and made a yummy dinner.    We ran a laundry and now she is long in bed and I am next.   We checked the standing at the Eastern Regionals and of the two top teammates one finished 6th out of the top 60 J3 girls in the East.  Not too shabby.   Tomorrow she heads to Sugarloaf with the team for two days of Super G training and a race.