Weekend update

I never liked snow skiing.  I tried, really I did.  We had a cabin (a very nice house) near Seven Springs for a few years when I was in my youth so we made a really good go of it on the weekends, driving to the cabin and heading over to the slopes. But I never remember liking it.  I was always too cold.  I lost control on ice patches.  The rope tow pulled at my arms like they were going to come out of the sockets. My skis would get all bungled up under me but the worst was the chair lift.  I was little, I mean maybe even little for my age, so those chair lifts would never quite hit me right.  I remember many a man grabbing me by the pants and pulling me into the chair. Then the ride up was even extra cold.  I’m afraid of heights to begin with, the air is now like ice, the lift stops (because no doubt some other little kid missed the chair and they had to stop it to pick them up) and now you’re swaying back and forth in the sky, cold and I’m sure I’m going to fall out of the chair lift to my icy death below.  And when I was fortunate enough not to fall out I had to “get out” at the top and get off the lift which meant keeping those skis straight up and out in front of you, getting the poles just right so you didn’t trip over them and pushing off the chair so it doesn’t hit you in the head and knock you down.  It was so stressful.  And right when I thought I was finally graduating from snow plowing to parallel stopping (after I paralleled right into Ellen at the bottom of the run) well that’s when the money ran out, the cabin was sold and I was ever so grateful to give up skiing.

I just came back from Pittsburgh and going through the security lines at the airport reminds me of that damn chair lift.  It’s like you have to get your ID out and have it ready and whatever means of boarding pass you’re going to use and balance it ever so precariously with your carry-on and your big bag that you hope will fit under the seat.  But I don’t want to get out my ID and boarding pass too soon because I’ll drop it or lose it so I wait until the last minute digging into these bags, zipping and unzipping wallet pockets to get out my ID – and then you get to the screening belt thingy.  So you have to figure out what to do with your ID.  Do you put it back in your wallet, zipping and upzipping?  You can’t put it in your pocket “NOTHING IN YOUR POCKETS” (I hear in my sleep) – and I have to go into the under seat bag and make sure I can pull out my liquids in my quart bag which invariably has opened and spilled out under my purse and jacket.  The shoes off is easy.  I can usually do that without peril. But the pressure of the people behind you that are waiting for you to get organized and get your shit on the conveyor belt and then get in line and hope you don’t beep and then you have to hurry to the end of the line to get your things well it’s just enough to make you have PTSD about chair lifts and skiing.

All that aside I had such a nice Pittsburgh visit.  I had a planned girls weekend with Ellen and Jennifer, two friends from gradeschool (see above comment about running into Ellen on a ski vacation) and well it was so genuinely lovely to spend a weekend with these two. I have kept in touch with both of them and have seen both of them in the past year but Ellen said she didn’t think she’d seen Jennifer in 25 years.  That just seems hard to believe.  One of the things we did was visited our homes where we spent time having sleep overs 50 some years ago.  We walked around the outside of Ellen’s old home.  They didn’t let us go through this time.  Ellen has been through it before but not this trip.  Jennifer’s home has this huge gate – like serious gate – so we didn’t get past that.  Probably would have been shot on site.  But my home we got to go in.  Barb (new owner) has lived there 30 years and she loves it there.  I love that she loves it there.  I mean I could have gone through it any number of times since I only moved away 5 years ago but I just never had the desire.  Jennifer lives in Maryland and Ellen is outside of Chicago so visiting is different for them.  I’m still too connected to be that nostalgic, but that visit to the house was quite special.  So much the same and totally different at the same time.

In other news, Mom is all settled in at Kerry’s.  Thinking back we should have taken her into her own place and got her settled there with Kerry spending time getting her settled in an apartment but as it is now she is not up for another move…yet.  Moving takes a lot out of the best of us, let alone an 86 year old blind woman so she’s settled into Kerry’s with the masses (all the kids that live there as well) and I added to the masses by staying there after my girls weekend too.  I had appointments to look at apartments but she said “no” – so kinda changed the purpose of the extra stay but I was still happy to be there. We still did “getting settled” things – just not apartment looking things.   I got my fill of friends and family and remembered what it was like to have a social life once again.

I came back to Florida Thursday afternoon, dropped off my luggage, and went straight to the beach for a walk. I’m not doing much laying out these days.  It’s still very very hot and well I’m just liking the walks. I mentioned just yesterday that it’s not Fall here in Florida (we are 30 degrees hotter than Pittsburgh today) but that’s really not true.  It is Fall in Florida.  The sun is different so the shadows are different.  There are many dead leaves falling off of the trees on my car and in the parking lot.  They’re not changing colors but they sure are falling.  It feels like Fall.  It’s just still hot. But that will change soon enough.  Yesterday morning it rained and when I got up to come sit on the porch I had to change plans as it was the hottest I’ve ever felt it here. Today though it’s beautiful.  I’m sitting out here not sweating!  I’ve seen a couple people walking over to the pool, I thought about doing that.  I thought about making it a beach day and sitting in the chair over there but started writing (I know right!) and well I guess that’s not going to happen either.  But maybe I’ll go for another walk. When you have nothing to do there are so many options!  When I am in Pittsburgh/Sewickley I am so stressed about trying to see everyone and I always miss someone – actually I miss a lot of someones.  Between my own kids, my sister’s grandbabies, my mother and not having a car, well it’s like impossible to do it.  So I go from that ridiculously busy guilt-ridden social conundrum to sitting on my porch with absolutely nothing to do (I walked around with the Swiffer earlier).

Everytime I’m in Pittsburgh I think it’s time to move back.  Everytime I land in Florida (and especially now that I live this close to the beach) I think there’s no way I can go through a winter.  So for now it’s just going to have to stay status quo..

xoxox