Miles High in the Mile High City

I made it on my flight out of Raleigh-Durham on December 30th, but I was barely conscious. Five o'clock in the morning comes awfully early sometimes. We had one last family dinner out at Mount Fuji, the night before, sushi and sake and topped it all off with gelato. We had some experimental rolls, with different kinds of fish draped over flash-fried and panko-crusted other fishes and avos and such. Ella was in rare form, hilarious and engaging and it seems my nickname has devolved from "Aunt Kafren" to "Aunt Rafren."

I was fully packed, with my two suitcases to check, and then my yoga mat bag and my laptop bag to carry on. I ran into Hadley and her friend as we boarded the plane and they saved me a window seat on their row so we chatted a bit before she and I fell into a slumber for most of the 4 hour flight to Denver.

Does anyone watch "Dexter" on Showtime? He sat two rows in front of us, kanoodling with his real-life girlfriend who it turns out is his sister on the show. He looks smaller and younger in real life and the sister looks shorter as well. Odd, huh?

As soon as I checked into my Renaissance room I ordered room service then slipped into a dreamless nap for a couple of hours...shower and change, connect with all the folks driving up from Telluride, then over to their Residence Inn for the pre-show festivities. And what a show! The Pepsi Arena is large, 18,000 people or so but we managed to find a nice row where we could shove intruders out and keep our people together. Concerts are just so much fun. I was overdue for a cut loose couple of days and Panic delivered. I took a cab home to my hotel at 4:30am, showered and slumbered, awakened at 10 or so, ordered a pot of coffee and huevos rancheros, then slept again until 2 or so, whence I showered and readied myself again, this time for the big show, the New Year's Eve concert, and headed on over to the Renaissance again. I am a huge fan of staying a reasonable distance away from venues and throngs of partying friends, as I can show up and leave at will. Kelly came down from Boulder for a couple of hours and Jason surprised Erika on her birthday with tickets to the show, plus Matty drove up, oh and Layla and Emmet from Denver. It was Emmet's first time seeing Panic and about a minute into the first song he turns to me and says, "I get it." It was really fun to watch his face during the show and see how much fun he was having, just taking it all in. I danced like a freak and my arms and legs are still sore! I made it back to the hotel by 6:30 this time, again showered and slumbered and awakened to order room service before we organized ourselves and hit the road for the 6 hour drive to Telluride.

I got to loll about in the back of Corina's BMW SUV while she and Alex laughed and chatted up front. We stopped at a great pizza place in Idaho Springs, and also caught an incredible sunset in Grand Junction, the sky was blood red which is always a cool treat on New Year's Day, right?

Not so many photos for you all right now, just not in the picture taking mode, but I am sure that will all shift once I am fully into a routine here. When I awakened on my first morning I was looking right up Bear Creek, sunlight playing on the snowy peaks at the top and I felt some relief. I am finally here. That is not to say that I didn't spend the next day questioning myself, Are you sure you are doing the right thing? Are you sure you can spend this money right now? What are you going to do when the ski season ends? You have to get a real job at some point in time, right? Who do you think you are? Why was the pizza crust so thick in Idaho Springs? You get the idea. Although I think it is more healthy than not to question your decisions, I was happy to fall asleep and rely on dreams to keep me feeling slightly insane.

January 2nd, and I was out the door getting my new post office box and checking account, having lunch with KJ and little Townes and then I collapsed into a 2-hour nap.

January 3rd, and I am picking up skis and boots and poles and new bindings all in place. And my old snowboard, tuned with new bindings. Another nap, this one only one hour, and more dinner and movies with CoCo. The house is great and so is she, I will have to get some photos of her and her "living pillows" these two adorable dogs that lie on you when you are supine.

It feels good to be back, but not quite there yet. I need to work and tomorrow I start teaching yoga at the Peaks, my first class at 9am! I went up for some runs today, CoCo and KJ and M, we went all over, to 6 and 9 and ended up at Allred's eating truffle french fries and drinking cider and bourbon (them) and chatting with CoCo's dad and Meghan's mom by a crackling fire. So nice.

It Ain't Easy Being Pink

Halloween with a five-year old is hilarious, but I must confess that the neighborhood roamings fall far short of my memories of this holiday.

There's Ella, dressed as Shanti, and Indian, and I put together a last-minute $7.50 Miss Piggy Costume. It turns out I was the ONLY adult in the groups that escorted the kids to actually dress up! What the hell? And then I rifled through my parents' old photo albums and look what I found from 1973:

Who knew I had such a fondness for pink tutus? This year my sister and her best friend decided to celebrate 10 years of being best friends by flying to New Orleans to see Widespread Panic play a concert that started by a roadie coming on stage and shouting into the microphone: "We've lost all hope, so dance your asses off, you fucking freaks!!" I find odd beauty and simplicity in that. Because at some point in time, there is only so much worrying and planning you can do, you just have to step up to the plate and let your freak flag fly a little higher than you ever have before--this half mast stuff gets old. So I stayed with Ella and we went to the neighborhood where her dad and lots of her friends live because she spent the first 5 years of her life there, so we trooped around, 6 parents and 5 kids, all under 5, for a couple of hours and supervised the hunting and gathering. Ella, being bossy and competitive, led each attack, literally sprinting to each door, friends in tow, to bang on a door and then proceed to walk past the lucky homeowner into the center of their living room, silently awaiting her reward of miniature candy bars. She was immensely successful. Upon release, she then sprinted from doorstoop to street, shouting "Miss Piggy!!" the entire way.

I chatted with Keith (her dad) about my memories of Halloweens we had in the 70's, back when NO ONE worried (seriously worried) about snatchers and pickle ticklers and all the freaks you can look up online now that live in your safe little neighborhood. They let us roam free. For hours. In the dark. Completely unsupervised. With pillowcases instead if plastic jack-o-lantern buckets to collect candy in. They sometimes became too heavy for us to carry home. No joke. Keith said they would put on two masks, collect candy from Mrs. Jones, walk down the steps, put the other mask on, and go in for round #2. And there would be packs, hordes of kids just like us, with parents just as trusting and permissive as ours, scouring and trolling through our neighborhood that literally stretched for miles and miles. I have very very fond memories of Halloween inthe 70's. Sure, every now and then some dumb kid would actually slice part of his tongue off by biting into a razor-studded apple, or suck on a hard candy that had been soaking up LSD for several days...but not us. We waited until the '80's to experiment with LSD--why push it?

That's Ella and friend Seamus. She actually managed to utter "Namaste" after each candy bar was dropped into her bucket.

And there is her booty. I guess Kit Kats were on sale this year--she got 10.

I have some other tidbits I will write about later...