winter vacation
For some reason I really enjoy using phrases and terms that are immediately associated with grade school like lunch money, homework, and winter vacation. What did you do on your winter vacation?
We flew back to Texas for Christmas and some change. Good times with the family, immediate, extended, and further extended with all these first cousins once removed (or are they called second cousins) running around now. It’s quite confusing. What do you call the children of your first cousins? Wikipedia says you call them first cousins once removed but several dictionaries call them second cousins. This whole time I’ve been calling them my nieces and nephews.
I was able to sneak in a Chick-Fil-A run while I was out car shopping with my moms. It was as good as I remembered.
Car shopping was really strange this time around. It wasn’t my first time but this time it felt especially awkward and uncomfortable. We went to three different dealerships and all 4 salespeople that we spoke to used to same exact line on us:
“What can I do to earn your business today?”
Are they all reading from the same script? Car dealerships are sort of one of those places that feel so out of place, like stepping through a time warp. I get the same feeling when I step into a laundromat or a shoe repair place. Most service industries have changed but there are a few who have hardly changed at all. What’s especially awkward is when the salesperson slips out of the picture to get the sales manager and he/she comes to try to break it down to you and close the deal. It feels strangely like an intimidation play but it’s so hokey and unbelievable that I don’t know why they do it except that I have to believe that it works quite often which is why they still do it and haven’t changed the way they do things. I wonder if the car sales industry will change in the next ten years. Like a Redfin but for cars?
I’ve been batting around the idea of starting a separate photoblog but I think I’ve decided to just intermingle the photoposts with this content. We’ll see how it goes.
We spent a few days in Reno/Tahoe when we got back from Texas and that was really nice and relaxing. We skiied at Mt. Rose which was ridiculously close to Reno. It’s a pretty small resort but because of that there were zero lines and we went up the lift right when we wanted to. It was snowing most of that day and now I know why powder is so prized by skiers and snowboaders. I only fell twice (as opposed to the fifty times I fell when snowboarding) and both times were pretty painless as the snow was fluffy and soft. I like skiing a lot more than snowboarding. I’ll admit a big part of the reason is because it’s a lot easier to pick up and the boots don’t feel as heavy and clunky so I’m not tired so quickly. And I like that you can ski right after you get off the lift since you don’t need to strap your boot back in. And I feel much more in control so I’m not endangering others on the slopes. All good reasons to pick skiing over snowboarding. I think the only thing snowboarding has over skiing is that it looks a bit cooler. I’m willing to give that up. Haha seriously.
Ski resorts have the monopoly on laid back effortless cool. It’s like a tropical beach resort without the sleaze. What a cool part time job for a teenager. Where else can you put your expensive ski equipment unattended and not worry about it getting stolen?
We went snowshoeing at North Star the next day. It was really exhausting but a cool experience. North Star is super nice, we’ll probably try to go there again MLK weekend. I love that it’s only a 3 hour drive away from where we live. That’s got to be one of the biggest perks of living over here. It’s also nice to use our 4runner’s 4WD to its potential. The husband was really excited that we were finally going to drive through snow in it.
Yesterday we played 3 hours of tennis in which the husband beat me 20 games in a row. He’s a good coach. I’m making improvements, slowly but surely. I spotted a girl wearing a burnt orange t-shirt and excitedly asked her if she was from Texas. She looked confused and explained that her tshirt was from some local Alameda league that she was in. I don’t know, I thought we had exclusive rights to burnt orange?
We went to this showing tonight of ten different short films from the 2009 Sundance Festival at the San Rafael Film Center and my favorites were:
Picking up the camera from the UPS station on Monday. More photos coming to you soon.
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