2006: More Ellen stuff, and odds and ends

I got a lot of very nice comments on the 2005 postings, particularly on the Emmaus piece. In fact, this blog got many more hits than the Christmas blog, even though the Christmas blog was listed on our Christmas cards and this one was only a link-through. I don't have the sitemeter set to tell me how or why visitors get here, but I suspect the word "Emmaus" in some combination with other words shows up on search engines and generates the hits. Most of the site visits are just a few seconds long, which leads me to believe that some word search generates the hit, and as soon as the viewer sees what's here, he/she moves on. Each site visit moves the site up in the eyes of the search engines, so it becomes a bit of a vicious circle. But I suspect it's the Emmaus piece, somehow, that gets them here. (not that this is my most popular blog, by any stretch; that's my work blog.)

I'm reminded of that because today (3/2/06 - happy birthday Texas, Sam Houston, and Greg!) I caught a link to this piece by a blogger with a brain-damaged son, and it got me thinking. One thing is certainly true: no matter how bad you think you've got it, like the dudes in this video, someone out there has it worse. Triumphs occur, though, if you muddle through.

(hmm, I hope these links stay good. . . .)

2006 looks to be an interesting year. Upcoming blog-worthy stuff includes a spring break trip to California in a couple of weeks, including some time in Orange County and some time in Mammoth (I'm already trying to brainwash Ellen into knowing that she'll be able to ski just like she can ride a bike), as well as a dads-and-kids camping/kayaking trip with Gina and Ellen (hoping for some rain so there will actually be kayaking!) at Colorado Bend State Park with the Littles and Rivases. This fall, Gina will start her last year (8) at St. Pats, and Mary will start her first (K). We'll be in green plaid for a while.

My plan is to blog the spring break trip, but we'll see how that turns out. As always, more to come.

The Unbearable Lightness of Bike-Riding

Oh, I curse myself for not writing this down when I first thought about it, way back in the summer. I even wrote myself some notes about what to say and how it all came about, to which I refer in this writing, but I don't know if I'll be able to convey the exhilaration of Ellen's ascension to bike-riding maven. But let me try.

We've included summer trips to New York (particularly Long Island) since we've been married, and certainly since we've had kids. Usually, the trip involves some time in Pt. Lookout (AM's mother's beachhouse) and a visit with Tom and Julie Sica and their kids. Tom was my college roommate, Julie was AM's and were were famously close back in the day -- really, still are. Usually, we visited with the Sicas at Tom's family's place in Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons. It's not what you're thinking; we don't "hang" with the Hanks and Spielbergs, and the place is really a pretty quaint "shack." But it's a nice place to go, and we hit the beach, the Shelter Island golf course, do a little fishing, usual beach getaway stuff. However, we have gone a couple of times to the Sica's real house, first in Connecticut and now in Albany.

Way back in 1999 or 2000, due to some scheduling issue with Sag Harbor, we visited Albany for the first time. It was at their house, in a great wide-open neighborhood full of colonial clapboard-white houses with black shutters, broad empty asphalt streets without curbs or sidewalks, that Gina learned to ride a bike. It wasn't hard to teach her. She was committed to learning, and determined to work through it. She fell a couple of times but was undeterred, and picked it up fairly quickly. She's always been physically adept, and I thought she would "get it" pretty easily, so my lesson for her was to keep doing 2 things: pedal and steer. As I ran along with her holding onto the bike seat, or with a hand on her shoulder or neck, I'd repeat the mantra: "pedal and steer, pedal and steer." She got it. Definitely got it.

I knew with Ellen it would be a different process. Ellen, closing in on her 9th birthday, was substantially older than Gina, who learned around her 6th or 7th birthday. And Ellen is just tougher to teach, since she can't cope with the unknown or unexpected like Gina can. But like it was with getting her to ski in 2004, we started with laying the groundwork early. We had her riding her bike with training wheels as much as we could, we talked about her being a "big girl" and riding a two-wheeler, and we set it out there as a goal for her: one that would take some work and some trial and error, but one that she could and would attain.

Well, it wasn't easy. The Sicas got a bike from a neighbor that would be good size-wise for Ellen, and she and I spent a little time with me holding handlebars and seat and running alongside her to get her used to the feel. But as with her training-wheel bike, she was dependent on my support, and didn't even try to balance on her own. My mantra with Gina ("pedal and steer") certainly wasn't going to work with Ellen; she would pedal and steer, but it was as if she was in a pedal-car or Cozy Coupe: she didn't get the need to keep upright or steer in a way to regain or keep her balance. So, for Ellen, there was a new mantra: "pedal, steer, and balance." But after an hour or so the first day, I was much less than hopeful. If she started to lean to the left, she just kept leaning until I pushed her back upright, and if she started to lean to the right, she just kept leaning until I pulled her back upright. And when the lean got too far, she would take her feet off the pedals to try to catch herself, which kept her from doing the first part of the mantra ("pedal") as well as increased the weight disparity toward the side she was falling toward (if she was falling left and put her left foot out, it just made her fall more and faster to the left). It wasn't as if she wasn't trying; it was as if she just didn't get it.

The next day started out a little more hopefully, but not too much. On the hopeful side, she was willing (if not exactly eager) to get back after it. But the lean was still there, as was the lack of balance. She started to get it with trying to balance her body, but she was doing it only with her body above the bike. In other words, if the bike started to lean left, she would lean her body from the waist up severely to the right, but wouldn't pull the bike that way, so she looked like a pretzel. And that mostly pushed the bike further out of balance. And she kept taking her feet off the pedals, against the first lesson of the mantra. Several times she jumped off the bike and ran back into the house.

But most importantly, each time, she came back out. She kept telling me she was sorry. I tried to keep my frustration in check (not completely successfully, but not bad for me), mainly because I thought I could tell what kept bringing her back to try again: she didn't was to disappoint me. She was scared and frustrated and angry in the way that she can get more than anyone, but she was most worried about disappointing me. I kept after her about the "three rules" (the mantra of pedal, steer and balance), and she started to get it. She would go for 5 yards with my hands off her, and she'd start to tip and take her feet off the pedals. "Pedal, steer and balance," I'd yell while I caught her. "You can't pedal if your feet are off the pedals, and I'm here to catch you, so don't worry about that." Soon 5 yards became 10, and ten, 20. She still occasionally had the pretzel bend trying to keep her balance, but started to get the feeling for keeping the bike under her and steering out of trouble.

Finally, she was able to make it all the way down the street one direction. We'd stop at the end, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I'd turn the bike around (picking up both her and the bike and swinging them around to face the way we'd just come), and off we'd go. Occasionally I'd have to reach out for her, but she was mostly on her own. We'd get to the other end of the street, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I think she was internally struggling; she wanted the whole process to be over, but she knew she was right on the cusp of beating this thing. As long as there was the prospect of it all being over just around the corner, she could deal with "one more time."

At one point, she told me, "Daddy, there's more than 3 rules." Huh? "There's more than pedal, steer, and balance. There's also 'balance and forward momentum.' That's the 4th rule. That's from Strawberry Shortcake." In preparation for the summer trip, we bought a portable DVD player, as well as a few DVDs for the trip. One of the DVDs was a Strawberry Shortcake video, in which one of the characters apparently learns to ride a bike. Of course, since I'm usually driving, when the kids are watching videos or DVDs in the car, I just hear them and don't see them (and I definitely try not to pay attention, either). But I had missed that in this video. So, we're on a trip where a big part of the trip is going to be trying to teach Ellen to ride a bike, and here I've got video support that I don't even know is there. I thought I had adapted my bike-riding-teaching mantra to help Ellen out, but Strawberry Shortcake did me one better. Propinquity? Serendipidy? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that might have been what got her over the hump.

Ellen's life is, in a lot of ways, out of balance. Through no fault of her own, easy stuff is hard, and hard stuff is pretty much impossible. I'm constantly inspired by her ability to get done what she gets done; if you looked at it objectively, she's behind her peers in a lot of ways, but if you look at it subjectively, at what she's got to get over, she's way ahead. As for forward momentum, milestones like learning to ride a bike show she's got it going for her. Maybe that's what drives her, ultimately: balance, and forward momentum.

Ultimately, her desire not to disappoint me kept her getting back on the bike. And ultimately, her faith that I would catch her got her to keep her feet on the pedals, so she could learn how to balance. Maybe it's egotistical to look at it this way, but I think it's so: she loved me so much that she couldn't disappoint me, and knew I loved her so much I wouldn't let her fall.

Now, I'm writing this December 21st. Since we returned to Dallas, Ellen has been a bike-riding fool. It's great living on a cul-de-sac, since the kids can ride up and down the street with little concern for traffic (other than the teenagers at the end of the street). It is obviously liberating for her to feel the freedom of riding, and she just loves it. Her skills and balance have gotten so good that she now rides Gina's "mini bike," with its 5-inch wheels, around inside the house. Mary has been joining her, to such a degree that she actually wore out the training wheels on her tiny first-rider bike, and I had to move Ellen up to the next-bigger bike and put training wheels on Ellen's (former) bike for Mary to ride. Last Sunday, December 18, on the day of her 5th birthday party, Mary joined the ranks of bike-riders. She had been riding with training wheels on the bike outside, but had been "scooting around" inside the house on the tiny bike that had worn out its training wheels. She would push off with both feet, coast, and keep her balance. Then she would occasionally try to pedal. "I can ride," she said, so I brought the tiny bike down to the street and let her try, and she did it. Last night, I took the training wheels off the small bike. For the last time.

What I did on my Memorial Day trip: from the back stock pond on the "new" ranch. Karl "Captain Obvious" Rivas and John "Meat Man" Little pulled more fish out of the pond than I did, but I caught the biggest bass of them all. Big fish tend to be smart fish, and this guy was no different. I was paddling in and decided to make my last cast of the day, into some structure near the shadow line on the western end of the pond. Cast a "plastic perch" lure into the shadows and started dragging, and it hit almost immediately. There's a lot of moss in the pond that's a long, grassy sort, and sometimes if you let your lure drag too deep you would pick some up. But as I started to pull up this cast, it seemed like I had snagged on something solid, like an underwater tree stump. I reeled in, and the drag on the line actually pulled my kayak to where the lure was stuck. I could see that I had a lot of moss on the lure, but couldn't figure out how I could've gotten that deep that fast to get that clogged up, and besides, it felt like something had hit my line seconds after the lure hit the water. I kept a steady drag on the line (it was one of the Captain's poles, and I didn't have any idea what test the line was and didn't want to break it and lose his lure), and the moss slowly started working its way to the top. As the 30 pound glob of moss got close to the surface, I could see the shimmerings of a fish in the middle of it, and a big one at that. I knew I'd break the line if I tried to land fish and moss at once, so I rowed to shore, "Old Man and the Sea" style, and got the Captain and Meat Man to drag him up. I cleared the moss away once he was safely in the shallows, Karl grabbed the digital camera, and there you have it. John (who landed him and got the lure out of his gills - he had really swallowed it) called it at 6 pounds. From a kayak, he seemed like 10. The good news, of course, is that he's back in that tank, probably a little smarter for the hook scars in his throat.

On the Road to Emmaus

One of my favorite writers is James Lee Burke. Although he writes crime/mystery novels, most featuring either a recovering alcoholic deputy sheriff in south Louisiana or an ex-Texas lawman turned lawyer, his underlying milieu is the troubled and tortured souls of deeply-flawed men, those who know the direction to truth and justice but who fail too often to overcome their lesser humanity. Burke's central, universal fulcrum, the pivot-point around which the world turns, is the story of the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus goes to pray after the Last Supper and before the betrayal.

There are two big themes there: in one, the disciples who attend Jesus can't stay awake. Despite their fervor and devotion, they are unable to overcome their humanity and the burden of their flesh, and they fall asleep. Even after Jesus rouses them and admonishes them, they still drop off to sleep. They are men; as much as they try, they cannot break free from their earthly, bodily restraints. They strive for the place the spirit wants to take them, but in the end, they remain flawed angels.

The other theme is Jesus' own plea to God to "allow this cup to pass from my hand." Jesus is all man in seeking to avoid his fate. What lies ahead of him is horrific: the reason it is "the Passion" is because it could not be an "action." Neither God nor Man could act to cause this to happen to him, but in this instance God allowed Man to act upon Him, passively. But Jesus is also all God, and knows that this plea will not, can not stand. Even though Jesus knows this is his fate, and knows what the end result will be, and knows that the only hope for Mankind is the path through his passion, he brings all men into communion with him by bringing himself into communion with all men: he begs God to ease his fate.

Burke sees these intersections of divinity and humanity, and the role of fate in directing the intersection of divine intentions and human failings, as the central theme in understanding the human condition.

But for me, lately, I've been thinking about events of three days after the events in Gethsemane, namely on the Road to Emmaus. On April 17 (the Third Sunday after Easter), the Gospel reading tells the story of two disciples fleeing Jersualem after the Crucifixion. It's actually Easter Sunday, and the disciples are walking to Emmaus, about 7 miles from Jerusalem. They want to get out of Jerusalem quickly, for fear that the fate that might await them would be equal to that of Jesus. They had entered Jerusalem with Jesus just days earlier, heralded by throngs of people welcoming them as kings, throwing palm branches in their path. Just as it seemed that their rabbi was about to enter into his rightful position as leader of Israel, on what they thought might be the eve of his triumph, all descended into chaos and death. The rug was simply pulled from beneath their feet, and now they were on the lam.

As they walked and discussed what had transpired, they were joined by another traveller who seemed not to know what had happened in Jerusalem the preceding days. At first one of the disciples, Cleopas, is astounded that the other traveller does not know what has happened in Jerusalem to Jesus, and tells him. The mystery traveller chastises them as foolish and slow for not seeing how all that has transpired was presaged and required by the Scriptures, and proceeds to take them step by step through the Scriptures, outlining all that was previously written and how it matches what has come to pass. The disciples are amazed, and when they reach Emmaus and the house where they are going to stay, the traveller seems as if he's going to keep walking. They ask him to stay with them and eat, and he agrees. Then, when the meal is served, the traveller breaks the bread, and at that point the disciples see him for who he is: Jesus himself. At that moment, Jesus disappears, and the disciples run back to Jerusalem where they learn that Jesus has also appeared to Peter.

The story of the Road to Emmaus has three steps. First, the disciples are crushed and heartbroken at the death of Jesus and the disappointment that their hero has been laid low. The palpable sense of disappointment is purely human emotion: the agony of defeat. The disciples cannot know what God thinks or understand how the seeming random and tragic events preceding that Sunday were part of a greater plan for God's glory. At this point, they are in a purely human state and frame of reference, confusion. They are Men, they are human, and they cannot break free of the bond that their bodies have on their minds and spirits. At least, they cannot until God provides the explanation and context for them. This is the second step, explication. Even then, they do not understand what they are experiencing. Their "hearts burn" while the stranger explains to them their human misunderstanding, yet still they do not know that it is Jesus telling them. Finally, in the third step, they experience revelation through communion. Jesus breaks the bread, the symbol of his supreme sacrifice and the vehicle for his ongoing communion with the family of Man, and he is revealed to the disciples.

The story of the road to Emmaus is that we can understand our failings and those around us, and we can understand the triumph and tragedy of everyday life, but we understand those things through a human prism. We see tragedy, and we see (as those disciples did) terrible things happen to good people, and we do not understand. In fact, we often doubt God; how can bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow that?

The answer in the Old Testament was harsher. Job asked God why, and God said, "Where were you when I created the heavens and the seas?" To us, rain seems to fall randomly, but perhaps it's just a problem of perspective; if we saw it from a different place, we would see the pattern. The lesson from Job is that "God has his reasons, and human's can't know them;" but the lesson from the Road to Emmaus is that God gives us these burdens and tragedies for His reasons, and that if we allow His enlightenment to shine on us, we will not only see His triumph but will share in it. We are poor, pathetic humans, with earthly bodies that drag us down and earthly emotions that will control us if we let them. But we are also embued with a spirit that can and will seek God, if we allow it.

Saturday, April 30, 2005, Ellen Claire Drummond took her First Communion. As you may know, Ellen suffers from Pervasive Developmental Disorder/Not Otherwise Specified (PDD/NOS), a disorder on the Autism spectrum. She is in our world, but not of our world. She is highly sensitive to outside stimuli, does not deal with pressure or changes in her routine, and has a difficult time interacting with others or taking part in normal social interactions. She works very hard at understanding things that we all know almost instinctively: how to start and carry on a conversation, how to tell when someone is speaking literally or figuratively, what is a joke and what is serious. And she has made great progress over the 8 years of her life. She has a long way to go, but she keeps going; and we keep going with her.

We worked with Ellen for months leading up to her First Communion. We practiced how she would hold her hands, the dialogue, and crossing herself. We even bought matzo crackers so she would have some idea what unleavened bread would taste like (she wouldn't even try the matzo, though). When we got to the church, we kept her out of the auditorium where the rest of the kids were assembled; it was loud and chaotic, and that would've put her on edge. We kept her by the school aquarium where she could watch the fish. When we went into the auditorium and got in line, she was scared. She was nervous walking into the church. We were sitting near the back of the block of pews set aside for the First Communicants, and a few of the little girls who are in St. Patrick School and are also in Ellen's Indian Princess Tribe turned to wave to Ellen. That show of support heartened me. The Gospel was the story of the Last Supper, naturally, but Msgr. Johnson's homily was about the Road to Emmaus. When it was our turn to go up for Communion, Ellen was actually physically shaking. We stood in the center aisle, Ellen between Anne Marie and I, and I kept my right hand on her shoulder; I was actually concerned that she might bolt. I whispered words of encouragement to her, told her to go ahead and put her hands out even though were were a long way from the altar, and tried to be soothing to her. We got to the altar, she took the host in her hand, and turned about a quarter turn toward me. I took my host from Msgr. Johnson while moving to block Ellen in; I thought she might run for it. But she took the host and ate it, and we headed back to our pew. On the way, I saw a couple of her Indian Princess mates and their fathers, and got contratulatory gestures from them. We got back to the pew and she said, "that didn't taste so bad." We did it! SHE did it! Of course, I spent the rest of the mass trying to hold my shoulders still so nobody could tell I was sobbing like a baby.

When your child gets sick, you suffer more than they do. When your child has real problems, whether they be life-threatening problems like cancer or life-altering problem like PDD/NOS, they can crush you and suck out your spirit. But it's at those time in life when you have to look around for the road signs for Emmaus; it may seem that all is lost, that your dreams have been crushed, that defeat has snatched away victory, that evil has conquered good. But if you simply allow it, God has an explanation; if you accept it, if you accept Him, God will fill that empty spot in your heart. God will commune. We suffer, and bad things happen to us, but we carry on and accept our burdens as part of God's plan, because that's what they are. Jesus came into the world not to remove suffering, but to fill it with his presence. Know that suffering is part of the package, and accept it, and look for God's explanation, and find God's communion.

We're all on the Road to Emmaus. Keep your eyes open for the other traveller who will help you understand it all.

2004

Welcome to the "EP" version of the Dallas Drummonds Christmas blog for 2004. Below are some additional items that Anne Marie wouldn't let me include in the Christmas blog, because they were too wordy. Well, you know me. I couldn't just delete them, could I?

February 14, 2004: Snow in Dallas.

Sometimes it snows in Dallas. Sometimes it really snows in Dallas. How heavy was the snowfall? Heavy enough for me to wear my Russian Sable hat. Heavy enough for Gina to build a life-size snowman. It was wet and mushy, but really was the best type of snow: enough of it to play with, but not so much that it stuck around for long. It was gone completely in a couple of days.

top: Gina and Ellen at the mailbox (obviously our "old" house).

bottom: our side yard and looking south.

top: looking from our house to the west.

bottom: the reverse vantage point, looking east toward our house (the for sale sign is our neighbor's perpetual for sale sign; we hadn't yet found our new house or put our house on the market).

Enough of Dallas snow; how about Colorado?

March 12,2004: SKI BLOGGING! We're going skiing! We leave tomorrow morning and I'm going to try to ski-blog the trip. We're going to Beaver Creek, Colorado. Anne Marie and I actually went there before, but way back in the late 80s or 90s, pre-kids. That was actually my 2nd ski trip ever, and it was about the best ski trip you could have, at least for me. Anne Marie was working for Citibank, and the bank took a bunch of customers and spouses on a long weekend ski trip. So, I went along as a spouse. One of Anne Marie's clients had a female CFO, so her husband and I had a great time just being "the wives." We stayed at the Hyatt at Beaver Creek, which was very new at the time, and like all good corporate boondoggles, everything was "on the house" (hey, gotta treat the customers right!). The hotel was ski-in, ski-out, and there was a button on the phone in the room for the "ski valet." You woke up in the morning, called the ski valet and asked them to get your skis and poles out and put your boots on the warmer, slipped on a pair of slippers and headed downstairs. Your boots would be toasty warm and your skis (freshly waxed overnight) and poles would be out in the snow waiting for your. Strap on the sticks, and the lift was about 20 yards away, slightly downhill. After skiing a few runs, you could ski straight back up to the hotel. The ski valets would hustle out of the hotel and unsnap you from your skis; you would stumble inside, hand over your boots to go back on the warmer, and toddle off to the bar for a hot toddy (signed to the room, of course!). Once you were ready to hit it again, your boots would be warm and dry and you'd be nicely recharged. That, I was to later learn, was as good as it was ever going to get.

Since that trip, I went on one or two "boys" skiing trips. It wasn't until 2000 when we went on a family trip. Anne Marie's sister Roey had moved to San Francisco and, as a single gal, had a share in a ski house in the Lake Tahoe area. Roey managed to convince Anne Marie that we should come out as a family for spring break, saying (from personal experience) that it would be best if the kids learned to ski at a young age. Gina was 6 and Ellen was 3. Roey found us a very nice house, and Anne Marie skiied successfully for the very first time. Gina went through ski school, and a great time was had by all. We even saw Anne Marie and Roey's brother out there.

We had another ski trip in 2002 (starting our every-other-year tradition) to Ruidoso, which was cheap but fairly dumpy. We also had Mary by then. Gina skiied again, but Ellen wasn't interested and Mary was too young.

On this trip, both Ellen and Mary will ski (I hope!). As you probably know, Ellen is a "special needs" kid, and has a lot of issues. She has some real sensory integration disorders, which means that she can't deal with sensory overloads or particular sensory inputs. For example, if part of her clothing gets wet, she can't deal with it. She used to strip off her clothes when they got wet; now, if her pants leg gets wet, she will pull that leg up as high as possible, sporting that Jackie Joyner Kersee one-legged leotard look from the Olympics a few years back. She also can't switch from one thing to the next very well, and gets very overwhelmed very easily.

She also has poor proprioceptive skills. That's the type of skill that tells you how much force to move your body with in a particular circumstance. For example, if you went to pick up a briefcase that you thought was empty, and instead it was filled with lead, your proprioceptive skills would be fooled; likewise, if you thought the briefcase was full of lead and it was empty, you'd almost throw the briefcase in the air picking it up. That type of skill, along with balance and body awareness, are Ellen's short suits. She's physically adept generally, but because she gets so frustrated so easily (and her frustration becomes overwhelming), it's difficult for her to learn difficult things. So far, she hasn't gotten the hang of bike riding (she just learned to swing on a swingset; her poor proprioceptive skills make it hard for her to figure out exactly when to swing her feet forward and lean back, or tuck her feet under her and lean forward. When you think about swinging, it just seems so natural: feet forward and lean back; feet tucked and lean forward. But for her, it's not logical at all.

Because of that, I'm pretty concerned about whether she'll be able to ski. She's now aware enough of her own limitations that she's pretty concerned as well. However, I've been pumping her up for it for about a month, and things look pretty promising right now. When I first told her we were going skiing, and I wanted her to try it, she said no way. She just wanted to go into babysitting. I told her we could have that set up, but that I really wanted her to try it. She still said no way. After a few weeks of me telling her every night when I put her to bed how much fun it would be, she finally relented and said she would go up the hill one time and ski down one time, but that was it. It was babysitting after that. After another week, she decided that she'd be willing to ski one day, but that was it. Last Sunday, I asked her what she was going to be doing in a week: she said, "skiing!" When I put her to bed last night, she asked what we were going to be doing tomorrow. I told her we were going to fly to Colorado, then drive to the mountains. She asked if we could ski tomorrow. She is dying to try it.

God, I hope it works out. I'm realistic about it, but God, I'm hopeful.

More to come. . . .

March 14: High hopes: validated, then dashed.

My apologies for not blogging yesterday. It was your usual travel day. Anne Marie always insists on getting to the airport way early, so it was a very early start on a 10:20 flight. We flew Frontier, for the first time. No complaints, other than what’s applicable to every airline: no food, not much fun. The plane was full and they asked for volunteers to be bumped. Also on the plane were two other St. Pats families, the Garcias and the Brookses. After landing in Denver, we rented a Chevy Trailblazer and drove the 2 hours to Beaver Creek. Got Ellen checked into the adaptive ski school (more on that later), AM, Gina, Mary and I got our equipment, and we checked into the condo after having some difficulty finding it. Dinner was at the Junek’s condo; we’re here with two other families from Houston, the Juneks (AM worked with Lydia at Citibank, and she and Gary have 2 daughters about the age of our oldest and youngest) and the Merkls (Chris went to UD with AM and I, and he and Kristi have a 6th grade boy and a 3rd grade girl), and the deal is that each family has to host the others for dinner one night. After dinner and a fairly humorous trip to the grocery store (if you’ve ever been to a grocery store in a resort town late on an arrival day, you know what I mean: it was like a tornado had been through there), we got an early night.

We got up early this morning to catch the bus up to the mountain. Ellen was very balky about skiing. I think I’ve explained about Ellen’s issues, and the way I’ve been trying to talk her into skiing. She wouldn’t get out of bed, but instead was using her art kit to write signs saying, “Ellen is not skiing today.” But she let us dress her in her ski attire, got on the bus with us, and went to the mountain. We met Paul, our instructor, and Ellen and I went off to the bunny hill. Paul was a very patient man, and we spent quite a bit of time trying to get Ellen to snowplow. When Gina was in ski school 4 years ago, they used “pizza” and “French fries” to describe how to put your skis to go slow (a snow plow is shaped like a pizza) or fast (put your skis parallel, like French fries). Ellen didn’t want to use those names, but thought the wedge looked like a triangle and the parallel skis looked like a rectangle.

So we worked and worked at the base of the bunny hill, including a stretch when Ellen wouldn’t get up off the snow. She just wanted to go home. Paul was pretty persistent, though, and finally decided we should just get her on the lift. She went up, skied down holding onto Paul’s poles, and enjoyed it. I was trailing, yelling, “Triangle! Big triangle!” Ellen was just talking and singing to Paul while they were skiing. We finally went to the big lift (Beaver Creek has some great easy green runs at the top of the mountain), had lunch, then skied around up there. Ellen fell a few times, and Paul kept trying to get her to let go of his poles, but she really wanted to hold on. He would get her to let go, or would drop his end of the poles so she was holding them and he wasn’t, and let her ski on her own for a while. He also spent a lot of time skiing backward in front of her, encouraging her. She can steer, but isn’t good at getting in a wedge and stopping. She can do it, and did often enough, but other than the steering, it’s pretty hard for her and does not seem intuitive to her at all. She also fell a few times, but each time got right back up. She seemed to be doing fine when we went up for one last run before catching a downloading lift back to the bottom of the mountain. That’s where trouble hit.

About 2/3 of the way down to the downloading lift, Ellen had a big wipeout. Head over heels, ending up face first in the snow. She was screaming, crying for Mommy, wanting to be picked up and taken down the mountain. It took a while to calm her down, but she was still sniffly by the time we got to the downloading lift. On the trip down, she swore she wasn’t skiing again. Ever. By the time we got to the bottom, she said her leg hurt (she wasn’t limping or favoring it, though). She had done so well (AM had seen her on the mountain, as had Gina) and the instructor was so positive, and she had been so negative this morning but still did it and it went well, we decided that AM would ski with her in the morning, with Paul.

Now, it’s late at night and she’s asleep, but when she was getting her pajamas on, she was seriously complaining that her knee hurt and was limping. It looks like it might be a little swollen. As of now, we’re planning on canceling her ski lesson and trying to get her in daycare, first thing in the morning.

I’m pretty heartbroken about it all. It always happens on the last run, and we probably should’ve just taken the downloading lift rather than that one last run. I wasn’t sure if she would be willing to go again tomorrow, so I wanted to push it, and she wanted to go one more time (but was still saying she didn’t want to ski any more days). She is so hard to deal with, and even when she does well, she gets frustrated and can’t seem to integrate what she’s just learned. When she likes something, she’s obsessive about it; if she’s not obsessive about it, she doesn’t want anything to do with it. It’s as if she can’t adopt it, can’t get her hands around it, can’t integrate the positive feelings she has about it (the fun of the lifts, the thrill of the skiing). It may be tons of fun, but it’s not comfortable and familiar, and she can’t connect with it. I was hoping we were there, or were getting close, and hoping that even though she said she didn’t want to ski any more, she would once we got her out there. Getting hurt may have changed that.

I’m hoping there’s no swelling or soreness in the morning. I’d love it if we could “force” her to go again, and she’d enjoy it again, but I don’t know if actually getting hurt will (figuratively) scar her.

I so wanted this to work for her. I’ve been working on her for so long, getting her to agree to ski at all. I feel like I’ve been working a piece of wood, getting it closer and closer to the exact shape and finish I’m looking for, and I’ve gone for just one more turn, one more cut, one more pass of the sander and ruined the piece. I hope not; even if she doesn’t ski tomorrow, I hope to get her out again Wednesday or Thursday. But still, I’m depressed. I want so much for her, and I’m so disappointed when it doesn’t work for her.

We’ll see, I guess.


top picture: the Drummonds arrive in Beaver Creek

bottom photo: the view from our condo balcony

March 15: Things get worse, then they get better.

Well, we woke up this morning and started getting everyone ready to go. Mary and Gina got up first, and Ellen was still in bed. I waited as long as I thought we could to get her ready, and when I woke her up, she couldn't move her right knee. Actually, it was swollen a little, and was probably pretty stiff. But the pain of moving it was like death for her. I got her up, though, and after walking (hobbling) around a little she was able to straighten and bend it. She did have a pronounced limp, though. We canceled her ski lesson and got her into the play school, so everyone's schedule was pretty much the same (except for Anne Marie's since she now didn't have to ski with Ellen for the morning as we had planned).

Of course, by the time we got up to the mountain and AM went to check Ellen into the play school, she told AM, "No, Mommy, I'm supposed to be skiing today." I don't know what that means. I hope it means that she is still willing to try skiing, and is planning on more skiing, even though she keeps telling us she doesn't want to. It's not reverse psychology, but I think this may be the way her mind works: she needs to say she won't do it so she won't fail at it, but underneath it all she really wants to try. She can't say she wants to do it, because if she can't do it she won't know how to bail out of it. Or maybe I'm all wet, and she just didn't really want to do the play school either. Who knows? By the end of the day, she was walking, running, and jumping with no limp at all. I don't think she was faking the limp (as tough a kid as she is to deal with, she doesn't have the ability to be that deceptive), but I do think she was really overreacting to some stiffness in her knee.

Gina was in ski school again, and graduated to the next level. Mary was in the kiddie ski school with her buddy Amanda. AM skied with Lydia and I skied with Gary. I was very pleased with my skiing, tearing up a lot of pretty hard blues, including a handful of mogul runs. I've got to say, I just do not get moguls. What the hell's the point with all those bumps? It's hard work and you have to go slow. That's not skiing.

Beaver Creek is really beautiful, and the skiing is awfully good. The resort staff work really hard to make sure the guests have a good time. I should especially point out how great they are here for kids with special needs or disabilities. Although Ellen isn't physically disabled, her PDD is enough to keep her out of regular kids' lessons. But they have what they call the "adaptive ski school" here, where special needs kids get their own instructor, one on one, for ski school. It's not cheap, but for the same price as full-day ski school, you get a full-day private lesson, and a 5-day lift pass is only $99. They get their gear free, and one parent or caretaker can accompany her and the instructor anywhere they go on the mountain for about 1/3 the price of a regular lift ticket. And the instructors are good at dealing with kids like her. They were also totally accepting of the fact that we didn't know if or how much Ellen would ski. She was scheduled for adaptive ski school for Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and was scheduled for play school Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (we had planned on Tuesday being an off day either way). Both the adaptive ski school and the play school have charges for cancellations, but both waived them as long as we notified them before morning. The Beaver Creek guest services folks have just been fantastic in helping us deal with Ellen's issues. That sure makes it a whole lot easier.

Another good thing about Beaver Creek is their "resort pass" system, including DTL status. You can get a photo ID resort pass with bar code that is about the size of a credit card, hooks onto a strap you can hand around your neck, and is connected to your credit card. You can use that resort pass to pay for lift tickets, meals, rentals, ski school, or pretty much anything else. Instead of looking for lift tickets, they use a hand-held bar code reader to read your lift ticket, ski school pass, etc. If you have DTL status on your resort pass, you don't have to buy a lift ticket; you can go "direct to lift" and when they scan your resort pass, you get charged for that day's lift ticket. A very good system.

We finally ran into the Merkls on the mountain at the end of the day today. Dinner tonight was at a Mexican food place, actually in the same building as our condos. We did repair to the Drummond condo for dessert and the boys took to the balcony to smoke some great Cuban cigars. Chris even hit the liquor store to pick up some excellent 1994 Porto Rocha Colheita Port to go with the cigars. Tomorrow is a day off; we haven't set any particular plans, but will probably end up in Vail for some part of the day.

On the whole, I'm feeling a lot better about Ellen today. I think she'll ski another day, and I'm going to really try to get her to ski both of the remaining days (after tomorrow, of course). That will mean that I won't ski any more other than with her, but I'd happily give that up if she would just ski. She's not ready to go without an instructor, and won't reach that point this trip, but she can get more and more comfortable with it. Then, for the next year, she will have "done it" already, so the next ski trip will be easier to get her up on skis. There won't be that initial hurdle to get over. I'd hate for her skiing experience to end the way it did yesterday afternoon, and another good day of sliding would be just the ticket.

Of course, you'll know how it turns out.

March 16: Treading water on a day off:

When I die (as I know I will), and I’m called to make my apologia before my maker (as I believe I will), my greatest crimes won’t be the felonies (although I’m really sorry about that guy I killed when I robbed that bank in Kansas in the ‘80s), but the misdemeanors. The little slights that I’ve laid off on my wife, the overbearing way I’ve been with the kids, my inability to hold my tongue with family members who, even thought they were wrong, didn’t deserve the harshness of my opprobrium. And like all dads (and probably all parents, but I don’t deign to speak for mothers anywhere, saddled with the Y chromosome as I am) I truly believe that each decision I make I make with the best interests of my kids in mind, but I know that I’m often uninformed and out of touch with what’s right for “the children.” Because of that, I’m truly confident and truly dubious of my plans for Ellen tomorrow.

It’s pretty late Tuesday night, and I’m just back from dinner at the Merkls’ condo. Chris beautifully grilled some monster steaks, and coupled them with fantastic wines (I’d have expected no less from him, though). Gina is staying with Katherine Merkl for the night (like it’s a big sleepover; our condos – including the Juneks’ – are about 30 yards apart, on the same floor even), but Ellen, Mary, and Anne Marie are all in bed, fast asleep. Today was a day off for us, so no early alarms to get ready for ski school and the like. We drove to Vail to wander around the village, play in the snow, and have a relatively early lunch. I had to be back to work most of the afternoon, making calls and keeping fires extinguished (interestingly, I have a handful of clients that always catch me on vacation: Rosemaria Levinsky at Hendrick Medical Center in the winter, Bill Hyer with St. Joseph in the summer), and AM and Mary went up to the Beaver Creek mountain to get everyone signed up for skiing tomorrow. We’re going to put Ellen back into the adaptive ski program, but we had to get Mary signed back into the baby ski school. Gina’s set to go (I should point out that Gina has done fabulously in ski school, advancing a grade; I’m afraid Gina gets short shrift in all of this – this is one of the misdemeanors I’ll be seeking forgiveness for – but I’m planning on skiing with her on our last day, and I’ll give a long post about that).

AM will ski with Ellen in the morning, and maybe I’ll ski with her in the afternoon. Like I said before, Ellen originally said she wouldn’t ski at all. By the end of my sales pitch, she said she’d ski 4 of the 5 days we’re here. She skied the first day, but was hurt and couldn’t ski the second day. Several times today, I asked her if she’d ski tomorrow or the next day. I’d ask if she’d ski the next 2 days, and she’d say, “no days.” I’d say one day, and she’d say OK. I’d say 2 days, and she’d say, no, one day. But I’d keep bugging her: over the lunch table in Vail, I’d hold up 2 fingers, and she’d shake her head. I’d hold up one finger, and she’d nod and hold up one finger back to me. You never know what she’s thinking or doing, or where she’s going when she starts a conversation, but underneath it all I can’t help but think I’m starting to understand her, and that’s damn scary and unbelievably exciting.

So, today we pretty much hung out and went to Vail. It’s very pretty over there, and the village has a real European feel to it (without all that secularism and graft you’d expect from European things). Lunch at the Red Lion, which I recommend (I feel compelled to put in a good word for any merchant who will happily put up with a motley group like us). I’d also like to put in a plug in for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, just because it’s my favorite skiing beer.

[Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got the local news (Denver, that is) on, and they’re running a commercial for John Elway’s auto dealerships, where the tag line uses the “Ghostbusters” song, but instead of “Ghost Busters” they sing “John Elway”; that was followed by an ad for Olshan’s done by Nolan Ryan, but instead of “cable lock” he’s talking about “water lock” to keep water out of your basement.]

So, not much happened today, but tomorrow might be interesting. Ellen will ski (St. Patrick will be with her); she may chafe at it, but she will do it. I think she might still ski Thursday as well, but we’ll see.

Obviously, I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

Top: the Merkls (our chef/somellier for the evening and family)

bottom: the Drummonds, sans Mary

March 18: And a fine time was had by all:

It was tough getting Ellen out of bed and ready to go skiing, pretty much like the first day she went. But we got her up and dressed (with minimal, but not no, cooperation from her) and up to the mountain. She got the same instructor (Paul Colwell), who brought a green hula hoop with him as a skiing aid. Instead of holding Paul’s poles while skiing, she held the hula hoop, and Paul would occasionally let her ski on her own. The hula hoop was just a security blanket for her, and Paul knew that she could do it on her on if we pushed her, but we decided that it would be much better if she just had a good time skiing rather than really trying to learn to ski. And we got plenty of photographic proof of her skiing.

I know this has been primarily about Ellen, but the fact is that if she couldn’t or wouldn’t ski, it would be very hard to justify another family ski outing. And since the armada moves at the speed of the slowest ship, as Ellen went, so went we all.

I also have to put in a big plug for the folks at Beaver Creek, especially the adaptive ski school folks (Roberta Boyd) and instructors (Paul Colwell). They really worked hard to make sure Ellen had a good time, and were completely flexible about the fact that we didn’t know day-to-day whether Ellen could or would ski. The configuration of the terrain is also very friendly to the green skier, since there’s a huge green ski park at the very top of the mountain, ensuring good snow for the beginners. And yesterday, most of the resort folks were dressed up for St. Patrick’s Day, handing out beads and green trinkets.

Now, about the rest of us. Anne Marie skied with Ellen and Paul; AM is definitely a green skier (she pretty much only falls when someone else runs into her, which happens a fair amount on some of the narrow green runs and roads. I started the day skiing with Gina and Chris, Kristi and Katherine Merlk; I hadn’t seen Gina ski yet, and she had apparently been doing very well in ski school. But on the first run of the day (we had just gotten off the lift and were 100 yards down the run), the radio crackled: AM was calling, telling me that Ellen was hungry and needed a snack. So, I broke off, skied to the halfway house (Spruce Saddle) and picked up some candy and chips, and via radio reconnected with AM, Ellen and Paul. We met up, Ellen ate, and chirped up (she was obviously suffering from a shortage of the endorphine “Dorito”). I skied one run with them, then went to reconnect with the Merkls and Gina. They were already at lunch, so I went to the bottom of the mountain, ate, and off we went to the blue Larkspur bowl, two fathers and two daughters (Kristi headed off to the Ritz, where we planned to meet her after a little more skiing). We skied over on the connecting blue to get to the bowl, but as soon as we were on the lift up to the bowl, the phone rang (I was weighed down with electronics: phone, radio, camera; my ski jacket weighed 10 pounds). It was Mary’s ski school, calling to say she wouldn’t go out and ski with the other kids and I needed to come pick her up. So, back down the mountain, to the kiddie ski school, and my day of skiing was over almost before it began.

I did, actually, get to see Gina ski, and she can ski blues with no problem. She’s not to the point where she needs poles, but probably will next time. It seems to me that kids will learn a lot better the mechanics of skiing without poles, so I’m not at all concerned that she’s skiing without them. She can go pretty fast, but basically just carves huge S’es down the face of the slope. Much more effortless than me, that’s for sure.

Mary was perfectly fine; she just didn’t want to go out and ski. So we hung out and waited for everyone else to work their way off the mountain.

Last night the adults had dinner at Cordilleria Country Club (Timber Hearth Grill), preceded by a sleigh ride. The evening was something of a comedy of errors. We were supposed to be picked up by a van from the country club, but we had to call twice to make sure they were coming (they got to us about half an hour late). Once there, we discovered that both AM and I left our credit cards in our ski pants. The sleigh ride was very nice: the moonless, cloudless night high in the mountains resulted in an impressive star show. Dinner was great (Chris again shepherded us through the wine list), but the service was pretty slow. It took 20 minutes after ordering dessert to actually get it (we had already finished the dessert wine), and the van back to the condo was also very late. The maitre d’ even came by to make sure everything was all right, thinking we had just decided to stay at our table long after they were closed. We finally got home, and Gina and Katherine had decorated the condo for St. Patrick’s Day, even throwing green and white confetti on us when we came in.

Today, the Juneks head back to Houston. We’re taking a leisurely approach to the day, and will get to the mountain when we get there. Gina and Katherine (who slept over after the babysitter left) have already planned out our entire day of runs. It’s been very sunny here, but a little too warm; by late in the day, the snow at the bottom is pretty mushy. But off we go. . .

(one more thing: I had to borrow a phone cord from the Juneks, and right now [8 am Thursday morning] I have no way of connecting to the internet, so no telling when this will be posted).

Ellen loves skiing through the woods (she says she's skiing the "secret hallways" through the woods). Here's photographic proof of her skiing, even though the camera was a little bugged by the glare:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

March 19: A leisurely day of pure skiing, followed by a drudgy day of travel.

The Juneks bugged out Thursday morning, taking a 7:00 pm flight out of Denver, so they spent the day looking at condos to buy in Beaver Creek. They’re pretty serious about buying a second place where they could spend part of the summer as well. Getting out of Houston to the mountains of Colorado in the summer would be awfully inviting, I assume.

Since Ellen had a Thursday reservation in the “play school” daycare/babysitting (we cancelled her ski school and turned in her equipment after Wednesday’s successful outing; she had had enough, and we didn’t want to push it), but Mary was on the wait list. If she didn’t get in, then AM and I would have to arm wrestle over who got to ski and who stayed at home with the kids. As it worked out, Mary got in the play school, so we were all free to ski. We all started out together: Chris, Kristi, Katherine and CJ Merkl and AM, Gina and I. We headed off to the right side of the map: Beaver Creek was the mountain originally developed, but they further developed Batchelor’s Gulch (where the Ritz Carlton was built) and Arrowhead Village, and we went off to explore those runs. Katherine had spent the night with Gina at our condo the night before, and they had spent the morning mapping out all of the lifts and runs we were to take. AM and Kristi just wanted to ski greens, but the kids were hell-bent on pushing some of the harder blues. After the initial run, it was pretty clear that AM and Kristi weren’t going to be able to keep up. So Chris took off with the kids, and I skied behind AM and Kristi in case either of them fell. Occasionally, one of the looping green runs they were taking would cross and recross a blue run, and I’d wait at the top of the blue until they had circled back, then I’d race down the blue to them. When they stopped for lunch, I took a quick blue run, and when they wanted to take an early afternoon break, I broke off for some black-and-blue time. I was fairly good on the blue mogul runs, having figured out how to drop into the turns, but it’s still way too much work.

When you think about it, skiing is a weird sport. But it is a lot of fun. It’s fast if you want it to be, it’s a good workout, and there’s something in it for almost all skill levels. Much of the skill of it is being comfortable with sliding on snow and developing an instinctive feel for the physics of it. It’s also something everyone in the family can do. But it’s damn expensive.

Today (Friday) was nothing but travel. It’s 2 hours drive from the Vail area to the Denver airport, and about a 2 hour flight. Add in packing up, returning the rental car, and navigating DIA (that’s one hell of a stupidly put-together airport), and then the hour you lose flying east, and it’s pretty much all day. Especially when you’re trying to keep the cats herded.

So how did we all do? Gina is an excellent skier, but hasn’t moved up to poles yet. She’s not a daredevil by any stretch, but she’s not afraid of any slope or terrain. In fact, she loves grove skiing, maybe too much. She’s getting tall, though, and she’s not the pocket rocket you see in other kids on the slopes. I hope she keeps her skills up even though we’re only likely to go skiing every other year or so.

Ellen I’ve described fairly well. It is simply hard to connect to her to find out what she really thinks and feels. It’s just an autism thing: Chris and I were discussing how some autistic kids can’t understand abstract thoughts, and some can only communicate in abstractions and can’t communicate in direct concrete thoughts. I asked her in the airport what she thought of skiing, and she said, “Great!” Then I asked if she was ready to go again, and she said, “I’m done with skiing. I’m not skiing again.” Back to back responses: skiing was great, but she’s never doing it again. The two days we took her skiing, she said over and over that she didn’t want to go, and resisted us getting her clothes on. But eventually we did, and she went up to the mountain and went off with the ski instructor (with AM or I along as well, but still . . .), and even though she had a few rough patches where she said she didn’t want to go on, eventually she would. She would sing while she was skiing, or recite all of the characters in Finding Nemo. I think she had fun, but can’t really connect with skiing. But we’ve got pictures of her skiing, and I think she’ll do it again. Given the progress she’s made from 2 years ago (our last skiing trip), I think she may be ready to jump into it with both feet next time we go.

Mary is our ski school dropout. She bailed out the third day of ski school after lunch, and didn’t even go on the 4th day. I didn’t see her but AM did, and said she was a pretty spastic skier. She is such a strong and independent character, and can really be a pain in the butt. She thinks she’s as old as Gina and can do whatever Gina does. She is very demanding of attention, and will interrupt adults in conversation or break things if she’s not the center of attention. And when she melts down, she really melts down. She’s very fortunate that she’s cute, cause her crap gets old fast.

We first went skiing as a family 4 years ago, when AM’s sister Roey convinced AM that she should bring the family out to Tahoe for a ski trip. Roey was living large and single in San Francisco (but dating a great guy, Trevor Carone, who would become her husband), and she had a share in a ski house in Tahoe. She had recently learned to ski, and was bemoaning the fact that she would be a much better skier now if she had started when she was a kid. So she convinced AM that a ski trip would be good for Gina. See, AM had never skied before, and had absolutely no interest in skiing; she would never have agreed to a family ski trip if it weren’t for the fact that Roey convinced her that it would be good for Gina. Funny thing, though, is that AM learned to ski fairly quickly and easily the first day out. We got a semi-private 2-hour lesson, mainly so AM could learn and so I could learn what the instructor taught her and be available to help out later, reinforcing the lessons or watching her form. She picked it up pretty easily, but she’s also an exceedingly cautious skier. I don’t think she’ll ever get on the blues, but she’s a confident green skier. Wedge turns and sweeping traverses, but she does get some speed up. She tires fairly easily, mainly because she’s not used to the type of physical exercise skiing entails (add altitude, and it’s easy to get tired).

Me? I think I said so earlier. I got to break away for a large part of the afternoon of the last day, and got some serious, hard, fast black and blue skiing in. My last couple of runs were in shirt sleeves, it was so warm (and I was so confident I wouldn’t fall). It got slushy because it was so warm, but when it’s a lot of fun skiing bare-armed.

On the bus from the airport to the car, AM was bemoaning the cost but was pretty positive about a family ski trip in 2 years. She did acknowledge that Gina would be better off skiing every year, something I fully support (since I’ll get to be the one that takes her). We’ll see how that goes. American Airlines does last minute weekend rates throughout the year, and occasionally you can get cheap airfares to ski locations like Denver or Salt Lake City, so maybe Gina and I will take a long weekend some time next winter.

Anyway, it’s good to get back home the Dallas, just in time for the runaway gorilla season. Next up in the Dallas Drummonds Christmas Blog: blogging from the Grove Park Inn. I’ll have to see if they’ve got wi-fi there. . . .

Top: the Keller Glade. I wish I had a photo looking down; it's nothing but trees down there. I could easily pull a Sonny Bono on that run.

bottom: Gina gets big air

March 20: A few other random thoughts about Beaver Creek:

At the bottom of the main mountain is the Hyatt (at the base of the Haymeadow lift); next to that is an outdoor bar called McCoys (at the base of the Centennial lift). Both of these had singer-guitarists working for the outside crowds. These guys weren't terrible, but they weren't good, either. And they had the same damn schtick every afternoon. Same songs, too.

The blues are fairly hard, and they put moguls just about everywhere. Centennial has a great black stretch, but most everything that's black or blue is moguls. But they do have a great area of green runs up at the top (check out the upper left of the trail map here), where the snow stays fresh even late in the day, and you can download on the big main lift rather than skiing down the mountain.

I can't say enough about the adaptive ski school. They are just great, and don't kill you with cancellation policies or restricted reservations.

April 15: A trip to North Carolina:

It's tax day, April 15, and tomorrow we're heading off to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. The event is the 40th birthday celebration of AM's friend Lisa Daves. Lisa's husband Bill, who (with their daughter Maggie) is in Ellen's Indian Princess tribe, works for the Sammons real estate family in Dallas, and he has some connection with the Grove Park Inn. So, we're joining the Daves and a dozen or so other couples for a couples weekend. The kids will stay with babysitters here, and we'll do a little golf, a little spa, a little I-don't-know-what-but-will-report-as-I-go.

I checked out the possibility of some white water rafting, so that might fit into the mix. Unfortunately, I e-mailed the rafting folks and they said the water's too high for the inflatable kayaks, which is what I'd really like to try (I'd even try the non-inflatable kind), so if I/we go it'll have to be full-sized rafts. It still would be fun: some Class II and Class III rapids on the French Broad River (hey, I knew a French broad once. . . ).

I'll be bringing this laptop, and plan on posting. I could end up just drinking and smoking cigars and forget, but I'll put something in here at some point.

Ladies of the evening at the GPI:



Post script: I did just end up drinking. And playing golf. I did set up a birthday blog for Lisa Daves, though. Check it out to see some more Grove Park Inn pictures.

Introducing the Band: Code Pink

May 1, 2004: Erin Little's "Girl Band" makes its debut at the Dallas Make-A-Wish Foundation's Wish Night fundraiser.

The weekend bridging April and May was the Jackson Walker firm retreat at Barton Creek in Austin, but (after a Friday golf game with UD classmate Dr. Paul John and my partners Jed Morrison and Barron Bogatto) I had to leave early to attend the Make-A-Wish Foundation "Wish Night" fundraiser. Why? Because Gina was performing with her friend Erin Little in a "girl band" called "Code Pink." Erin was a childhood leukemia victim (she's over 5 years in remission, but it was a tough road for her when she was fighting the cancer), and her make-a-wish wish was to record a CD. She did it, and Gina was one of the back-up singers. They preformed at the Wish Night fundraiser, after being introduced with a "VH-1 Behind The Music" style video, complete with Britney-style hands-free microphones and choreographed dance steps. It was awfully cool.


Gina, Erin, Kelly, and Christina

Top photo: the band on stage at the Hyatt Reunion Ballroom. You can see the jumbotron in the background. Check out the Gulf Shores photos below to see Gina teaching her uncle and cousin the dance moves.

Erin, Gina, Kelly, and Christina signing CDs for the adoring fans. Yes, CDs (with 2 songs) are available, as are DVDs of the "up close and personal" piece and the on-stage performance. It took me several years to figure out how to photo-blog, if I ever figure out how to video-blog I'll attach the video clips from the DVD.

May 31, 2004: Central Texas.

In early May, we traveled to Belton, Texas where our goddaughter Rachel Booth celebrated her first communion. Rachel's father Bill Booth is a high-school friend of AM's. Then, over Memorial Day weekend, we went to San Antonio and Lampasas to visit our friends Karl and Julie Rivas and their boys Justin and Paul. We stayed with them at their house north of San Antonio (in Spring Branch) and rafted/kayaked the Guadalupe for a couple of days, then went to Julie's family ranch near Lampasas to ride horses, fish (that's where Gina caught her first 2 fish, both large-mouth bass, in a stock tank on the ranch), swim, kayak, and go 4-wheeling. We've done the Memorial Day thing a few years in a row, and now that I'm getting into kayaking, I hope we don't wear out our welcome with the Rivas family too badly.

Top photo: my LandRover properly loaded with hulls, in front of the Rivas house in Spring Branch (notice the huge front yard - and Karl gets to mow it!). The yellow kayak (the "big banana") is mine, and I brought it down from Dallas to run the Guadalupe. One of Karl's neighbors has a couple of sit-on-top kayaks that we borrowed as well. Saturday morning we took all of both families and rafted down river, and in the afternoon, Karl and I took the big kids kayaking. I rode in the banana, Karl took one of the SOTs, and Gina and Justin took the other. Sunday morning, I managed to get another ride in solo.

Bottom photo: Ellen on Red at the ranch in Lometa. This is basically in the side yard of the "new" ranch house; the original ranch house is still on the property and one of the ranch hands lives there, but the "new house" is a great place, really built for entertaining, with some great views.

Here's Gina on Red, with more of the ranch house behind her. Julie is on the other side of the horse.

Here's Mary on Red. Behind her you can see the view out of the kitchen and from the upstairs deck. It is also where we pull out the lawn chairs at night and enjoy some adult beverages and watch for shooting stars. One of the most amazing things about being at the ranch is the view of the stars at night. There's very little in the way of ground light and the climate lends itself to clear night skies, and for city folk, it's always impressive to see the vast wash of stars in the sky. The milky way really is the milky way.

The sky's big, too; our last night at the ranch this year, everyone else had gone to bed, and I was about to turn in. I turned off the TV and the last of the lights downstairs, when I notices flashes of light out the window. Of course I immediately thought what anyone would think: UFOs. Actually, I did think that for a second, but I had been drinking heavily all day. I walked outside to see what it was, and while the sky was clear overhead, to the north there was a monstrous dome of cloud that was flashing like a midway ride. You couldn't hear a sound, since the storm was probably a hundred miles away, but you could see all of the lightning, flashing and popping at the rate of several times a second. Awesome.

Monday, June 14:

Catching Up on a Rainy Monday: I woke up at about 5:30 this morning and figured this was the best opportunity I would get: It was as early as I was likely to get up on a beach morning, and we'd had a mighty impressive storm the night before, and if shells were going to wash in and I was going to find them, this would be as good as it would get.

I've always romanticized while walking down the beach, eyes scanning the passing sand like the hair-netted woman working the Lay's production line culling out the chips that are a little too black or have a little too much peel on them, thinking I'd find better shells if I was the first one on the beach, right after a big storm churned up the sea and threw great baskets-full of beautiful shells onto the shore. Sure, if I was the first eyes on the beach, at dawn, after a storm, the beach would be littered with conch shells as big as my head. The sky would be light with Homer's rosy-fingered dawn, the clouds of the night before distant on the horizon, the cumulonimbus anvil-tops sparkling pink and orange, the clear green see-through waves crashing big and strong into an explosion of foamy white. I'd see silver flashes of mullet cutting through the tips of the waves before they broke. And I'd walk, and collect my weight in beautiful shells, the difficult task being deciding which ones to throw back. If only I could be the first one on the beach after a storm.

The Drummonds are having another family get-together at the beach this summer. We had one four years ago, the week of July 4, 2000, in Orange Beach, Alabama (I think that's when we announced to the family that Anne Marie was pregnant with Mary). My brother Shawn, his wife Paula, Jimmy, Katie and Zane live in Fairhope, Alabama, where Paula is a pediatrician. Since the whole family usually gets together in Houston at the holidays, we tend not to think of the Texas coast when planning these things. Plus the beach is much better here. And Shawn and Paula have a second small house on Perdido Bay, so we'll have some extra room. And we can make Paula and Shawn shop for beach houses.

In 2000, Paula and I did some internet searching and catalogue shopping to find 2 houses in Romar Beach, a small one right on the beach to serve as our base of forward operations and a bigger one back across the street to serve as the dormitory. We originally focused on the more populous Gulf Shores, but the location of their bay house and a little local knowledge of summer traffic here led us further east towards Orange Beach. It worked out quite well, and all six Drummond kids and their families made it. This year, Paula did all the legwork herself and found us the Booked Up, a 5-bedroom, 3-bath base of operations right on the beach, a stone's throw from the Florida state line (and the famous Flora-Bama Bar - think Gilley's on the beach). We drove from Dallas to Hattiesburg, Mississippi Friday, and finished the trip Saturday, rendezvousing at the bay house before heading to the Booked Up ("BU"). Gina caught the third fish of her life (I'll get to the other 2 when I catch up), a foot-long catfish, off the pier of the bay house. I actually caught a catfish myself, but I was just trying to get the bait off of the hook. Gina named her fish William, and Katie named the one I caught Alberta (they like to name the animals they see; Gina just told me about Francisco, a big bird she saw on the bay house dock, and Quimby, the clam I dug up at the beach Saturday afternoon). Although Gina wanted to eat her catfish, we practiced catch-and-release. The fish wouldn't have delivered much of a meal, and besides, I don't know how to clean them.

By Saturday night, we were esconsed in BU: Art and Rhonda, who also drove Friday but went all the way to the bay house where they spent the night with Randall and his girlfriend Chrissy, who drove in from Jacksonville where Randall is in the Navy; the Dallas Drummonds, and the Alabama Drummonds. Colleen, Charlton, Sydney and Logan drove from Houston on Saturday, and made it to BU Saturday night (they're staying at the bay house again). Leanne will arrive Wednesday, and Greg, Toni, Kevin and Travis won't be able to make it this year.

Last night brought a heck of a storm. After a long Sunday on the beach, a tropical depression out in the Gulf decided to throw us a rain band. We ran down to the beach to collect the umbrellas and beach canopy Shawn had constructed, along with the beach chairs, shovels, pails, etc. before they blew away. The wind was probably around 50 mph, sand-blasting us until the rains came, when it became a combination of blasting rain and water. We corralled everything and wrestled the canopy to the ground and semi-disassembled it and stored it out of the wind under the house. Art, Shawn, Charlton, Paula and I were soaked to the skin by the time we got it all in. It was like an amusement park ride, but with lightning.

So when I woke up at 5:30 this morning, I figured this was my opportunity to live my dream and collect shells. Of course, reality doesn't hold a candle to imagination. The skies are still mean and gray, not rosy-fingered; the water's roiling, but gray instead of green. And instead of shells, most of the flotsam is junk washed ashore from boats or some other shore: mop heads, watermelon skins, plastic jugs. The beach is littered with lawn chairs, tarps, and beach toys; we're not alone in keeping our stuff out on the beach, but quite a few folks didn't brave the wet sandblasting to recover their stuff. There is a decent tidal pool on the beach now, but the water in it is pretty brackish; that white sea foam turns brown and smelly without new water circulating through it. I didn't walk too far down the beach when it started raining. Yeah, this was nothing like I thought it would be. I should've stayed in bed and left early-morning beach-combing to my imagination.

We'll be here at the beach through the week. The forecast was for typical Gulf Coast summer weather: highs in the high 80's - low 90's, chance for thunderstorms every afternoon. But this tropical depression in the Gulf has changed that. We may end up seeing some movies rather than baking on the beach. I'll keep you posted.

Top photo: the Booked Up. We had the left half of the place; it's actually a duplex of 5-bedroom houses.

Bottom photo: the view from the deck. That's Leanne and Shawn.

Inside the Booked Up:
A generation of Drummonds, absent Greggy. Hey, are those daqueris?

bottom: Gina teaches Katie and Shawn the Code Pink moves.

Later that week:

It continued raining on Monday, and while AM and Paula shopped the day away, we took the kids to see a movie. I drove and dropped off, leaving Colleen and Charlton to actually chaperone the kids; I had to go to the fish store and buy the ingredients for my annual beach seafood mixed grill.

Joe Patti's in Pensacola is a great fish house. I highly recommend it. But I advise to make sure you know whether you're getting shrimp with or without heads. I had a little brain flatulence and didn't check, which left me de-heading shrimp when I could've been cooking or marinating myself. Great sea scallops, shrimp (some of which were boiled), ceremoniously-cut sushi-quality Ahi tuna and swordfish, all grilled in the lee of the beachhouse (the wind and rain persisting through Monday night into Tuesday). The tuna was garnished with my red onion teriyaki relish, of course.

Tuesday started rainy, so I worked most of the day. It did clear up late in the day, but the water stayed rough. Wednesday we spent on Shawn and Paula's boat, plying Perdido Bay and the waters around Ono Island. Thursday was golf day for Art and me at Perdido Bay Golf Club (a "day at the beach" for me, considering how many sand shots I had to make; add in Gina and Syndey as caddies, and it was a pretty fun outing), and Thursday night was spent watching the Pensacola Pelicans get whipped by the Ft. Worth Cats (we were closer to the Pensacola A-league stadium than the Mobile Bay Bears AA stadium). Logan caught a foul ball and gave it to Gina, and Colleen got one of the Pelican coaches to give Logan another ball for being such a good guy. After the game, the kids ran the bases and talked to the players, getting autographs. We even ran into one of the Ft. Worth players (Jim Essian) we were giving grief to when he was getting on the bus after the game. Of course, we hit the Flora-Bama afterword.

Friday was a simple beach day, although AM and I walked down the beach to the Flora-Bama so she could say she's been there -- we were in bathing suits and had no shoes so we couldn't order, but one of the other patrons (from Louisiana judging by the accent) saw us and went to fetch drinks for us. There was a band doing a sound-check, so we sat and listened to "Drift Away" while having a cocktail. We drove home (all the way through) Saturday. Spent most of Father's Day at the office trying to catch up, something which I'd better get back to now.

Top photo: In the bays behind Gulf Shores on a hot Wednesday: Zane, Gina, Ellen, Anne Marie, Jimmy, Mary, Paula, Logan and Jeff at Pirates' Cove Marina behind Ono Island. Dogs run free in and around the restaurant, and the Yuengling beer is icy cold. Mmmmm.

Bottom: Mary and Ellen at Shawn and Paula's bay house. They also have a huge backyard leading down to the bay. Their boathouse is right behind the girls.

Fish. And Chips.

Fish. And Chips. Get it? Sometimes I crack myself up. Usually, though, it's just me that laughs. Is that bad?


That's Gina in the background fishing, and Mary in the foreground eating chips. This was during our boat outing.


UPDATE: The Booked Up is Blown Away.

During the summer hurricane season, the big one that hit Mobile (Ivan, I think) apparently wiped the beach clean of a lot of beachhouses. I managed to find video from a few of the realty companies where they showed the aftermath, but couldn't find one that definitely showed where we were staying. The high-rises actually survived pretty well, but according to Paula, the Booked Up got washed away. Maybe the band at the Flora-Bama singing "Drift Away" was foreshadowing.

August 23:

Catching up on the rest of the summer: After the big beach trip, we managed a few small trips throughout the summer, all via car. It was an unusually cool summer in Dallas: only one day in triple-digits, and that one only 100. (For some perspective, in 1980 there was something like 60 straight days with triple-digit temperatures; we usually average 20 or 30 days that hot). So we didn't really miss the annual NY beach trip.

1. Over the July 4th weekend, we took a trip to Houston to visit the Merkls, who had skiied with us in Colorado. They have a lovely house in Southside Place (a small city next to West University Place, completely surrounded by the City of Houston), and we swam, grilled, and drank some mighty fine wine.
2. We spent the last weekend in July at the Martin lakehouse on Cedar Creek Lake southeast of Dallas [see the "Martin/Corrigan" photos]. Our friends Joe and Johanna (Martin) Corrigan were members of our dinner club when they lived in Dallas, but they now live in Shanghai, China, where Joe works as head of Asia Finance for Texas Instruments. During the summer, Johanna and the kids (Ashley, Cassie, and Jack) come back stateside, where they split time between Johanna's folks' houses in Dallas, Massachusetts, and Cedar Creek. They invited us out for the weekend at the lake, and we eagerly accepted. I had to be at a hospital board meeting Monday night in deep(er) east Texas, so we stayed Monday and most of the day Tuesday. The kids had a great time, Sea-Dooing and taking the boat out. I took my kayak and got out a little on the lake when it was rough; a cold front came through and it was actually quite cool. Ellen and I spent some semi-rough time trying to learn to ride a bike; it's not easy for her, and she's not the easiest kid to teach (nor am I the most patient), but we tried. We're not there yet, but we're making progress. The Drummond and Corrigan kids got along like thieves, which is really nice since we usually only get to see them once or twice a year.
3. The first week of August, AM and the girls drove down to Houston to hang out with Gary and Lydia Junek and their girls Alexa and Amanda. I stayed at home to work, since they went during the week. Part of the reason they wanted to get out of the house was because they craved the visit (Mary loves Amanda, and they got along pretty famously when we skiied with them), but it was also to keep everyone out of the house in case it was being shown.

Our house being shown? Yes, that's right, we're selling our house. After 3 years of looking, Anne Marie finally found something bigger, better, and in the neighborhood she's wanted to be in for some time (1.4 miles away, per Yahoo). So now our house is on the market. Let me tell you, August is a pretty crappy time to try to sell a house. We had very little interest. It's picked up some now that school has started (it starts mid-August down here, not post-Labor Day), but no offers yet. We close on the new house a week from today. More on the house next post.

We've got a few trips still in the works, including another lakehouse trip to a totally different lakehouse on Cedar Creek Lake (owned by John Amend, a friend of Lisa Daves' husband Bill) [see "Amend" photos below]. Right now, the kids are getting back into the school routine, and we're trying to keep the Robin Meadow house clean while AM goes shopping for new stuff for the new house. Jeez, just thinking about that makes me think I better get back to work.

At the Martin/Corrigan lakehouse trip: Gina, me, and Ellen on "the General" (I think; the Sea-Doo's have names, but I can't remember which is the General and which is Sam).