Winter? Bah Humbug.

It snowed here today.  And I had to do a little shoveling (see pic above).  My wife bought me the orange jacket & pants just in case I fell off the roof; she would have a better chance of finding me.  At least I THINK that's why she bought it for me.  Come to think of it, this is the exact same outfit that the state prisoners wear during the winter.  It's possible, but not probable, that she has already called the police, reported an escaped prisoner, and they could be on their way as we speak.  So I'll have to type fast to make sure I get this done just in case.  I hung the orange outfit in the basement to dry but I'm sure they would find it and that would be the end of me.  However, I'm betting that my wife did not call the police...you see, I'm not quite done shoveling yet.

I really hate winter.  So why do I live in New England?  Good question, but since this isn't the question and answer period of the blog save it for later will you?  Years ago I thought it would be a good idea to go to a ski resort to try skiing, so we went with another couple for the weekend.  My buddy was looking at a map at the bottom of the mountain and saw that there was a cross-country path at the top that was about a mile long so we thought "why not"?  Without any lessons, mind you, he and I went on the ski lift and up we went.  Almost at the end I realized that the lift doesn't stop to let you off - so when we got to the top I proceeded to get off and fall on my ars (that's Swedish for butt).  Anyway, I survived that and went to the cross-country path which was nice.  Neither one of us figured out that, since the path was at the top of the mountain we would have to eventually get back to the bottom.  And, I found out, there is no ski lift to bring you DOWN - although I'm thinking of inventing a "ski-drop" for that very purpose. Not only did we find ourselves at the top of a slope but it was an "expert slope" at that.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with ski terminology slopes go from the "bunny slope", aptly named because it is relatively easy, to the "expert slope".  I found out that the word "expert" translated from the original Greek means "good luck, sucker".

After I beat him over the head with my ski pole, my buddy began to ski down the hill.  He made it...and so were 6 year old children.  So I thought "it can't be THAT hard" and pushed forward - and fell on my ars again.  Sparing you the gory details it took me about 20 minutes to make it down a slope that should have taken a couple of minutes.  The next day we took lessons and the whole skiing thing began to make sense to me...what did I learn?  Not to go skiing again.