4:21 p.m. - 2007-02-25
sunday
Yesterday we went snow tubing which is my new favorite winter sport. It's like snowbaorking without getting hurt and it costs about half the price. You tow your tube up to the line of people and when it's your turn you have to hand your leash to the nice man, and quickly plop your snow-suited self into the tube while the attendant attaches the ring on the end of the leash to the handle that comes around on the tow wire. You are suddenly jerked away, up the hill. It is very hilarious to see your mother, in her turquoise snow suit, your father in his combo of camo hunting suit and BRIGHT ORANGE vest and eskimo-like BRIGHT ORANGE and fur covered hat-thing, your little first-grader friend, Alison, and your cute husband in his snug, apparently purchased in high school snow pants, each sprawled a little helplessly on their snow tubes, being tugged up the hill. On our first attempt, Alison was first, my mother, second and I was behind her. i looked up the hill as Alison was assisted by the nice man at the top, who helped her off her moving tube and handed her the leash, which she promptly dropped. It skidded down the hill toward my mother who was facing down the hill, looking at me behind her. I shouted at her, "MOM! LOOK BEHIND YOU!" She made a grab for it, but it went by, coming toward me. I managed to stick my giant bubblegum pink space boot out and grabbed it. As this happened, I had covered a lot of ground and looked up just in time to see my mother scrambling out of the way as I was promptly dumped into a deep hole of some sort and bounced off of my tube. This is how your tube gets jostled loose from the cable, and you are supposed to grab it and get out of the way before the next person lands on top of you. It seems like there is a less chaotic way to do this, considering the high number of nearly immobile children wearing well-stuffed snow-suits, a la Christmas Story. Not to mention the two butch lesbians we kept getting in line behind who held everything up by taking pictures of each other. Anyway, I rolled out of the hole, laughing so hard I almost barfed. And still managed to have a hold of Alison's tube.
The whole thing was really fun and we managed to hook our snowtubes together a few times, to slide down together, which GREATLY increases the speed. The most amusing part is when a train of 6 or 7 people would come hurtling down, headed straight for a kindergardener, struck with deer-in-the-headlights terror. The landing area at the bottom could get a little dangerous.
I highly recommend this activity as a great way to chase away the winter blues.
Kevin is doing our taxes. I just returned from the grocery store and am re-reading the next Harry Potter. Our giant tv is more or less broken and funds to fix it are, well, non-existent. That's fine because 1. the upstairs tv works and 2. i don't mind using my leisure time for other activities. However, I am coming dangerously close to the end of the most recent Harry Potter. I need some other delicious fiction. Barack's book is good, but it's work-reading, not fun-reading and i am having trouble pushing through it.
