NO LONGER WORKING – TAKE SOUL

I’m just a wee bit tired, so this’ll probably be short and incomprehensible. Like a few people I know.

Yesterday my friend Matt and I went up to the mountain to try snowboarding. According to my season pass I am “NO LONGER EMPLOYEE” and the ticket attendants are to “TAKE PASS” in case I try to use it. Personally, I found that to be a rather shitty way for an employer to treat a previously excellent snowboard instructor who had broken his leg snowboarding. Fortunately I was friends with the attendants who were working so they just let me through.

They didn’t have to let me through very many times, though, because I only had enough in me for one run. Toeside turns were pretty solid, but heelside turns put way too much pressure on my fibula and felt really bad. I’ll give it a shot in another two weeks, but right now I’m still grounded. I’ve gotta stop biking in gravel pits, too, because I keep falling off my bike and jamming my leg. Either I’ve gotta stop doing things, or I’ve gotta stop being such a fucking idiot when it comes to my free time. Gotta take up croquet. Or crochet.

Matt and I swung down from the mountain right as the rest of Bend was finally heading off to work. We grabbed a frisbee and while waiting for the putt-putt course to open we tossed disc in Drake Park for a bit. Matt is killer with the disc, and somewhere along this wild crazy adventure I have learned how to toss a frisbee, too. Perhaps it was playing ultimate frisbee as a wee youngin’ at Ihduhapi. Perhaps it was playing ultimate frisbee at All-State band camp (the rumors about band camp? they’re all true!). Perhaps it was on my college freshman ultimate frisbee team. Perhaps it was tossin’ with my sister and future brother-in-law at Shell Lake. Perhaps it was playing ultimate as a rough-and-tumble senior counselor at Ihduhapi. Perhaps it was our drunken frisbee-fests out on Kite Beach in Hood River. Wherever it was, there’s nothing as fun as a couple of accomplished disc-heads tossin’ to and fro. Sweet bliss, my man.

When 10:00 rolled around we hit up the Fun Center (literally, the “Fun Center”) for a round of putt-putt golf. The lady behind the counter at the bowling alley was all frazzled cuz she had to teach a bowling lesson to some high schoolers, and we were all like, “What you so frazzled ’bout? You work in a bowling alley.” Putt-putt was great fun, complete with farm machinery hazards, gorgeous landscaping and wild wild west antiques. Let me tell ya, there’s no waiting for tee time when you’re playing putt-putt at 10:00 in the morning on a Monday. I should play hookie from work more often. My boss has actually been encouraging it.

We finished up with the whole schbang around noon and called it a good morning. From mountains to snowboarding to frisbee to putt-putt, I had no compliants, and Matt had to get home and work on procrastinating. I mean packing. This weekend he’s leaving on a three week road trip, and as soon as he gets back from that he’s moving to Sisters to rattle around in the woods for the summer and work as a firefighter. If everything works out as planned, his wife Tori will be working at a resort in Alaska for the summer, and come the fall they’ll both be moving back to Bend.

Or Portland. Four months out, plans get rather vaporous. Remember when I was moving back to Duluth? Remember that? Last November? Am I a fool or what? I figure if I dig my heels in deep enough, people will eventually move out here to chill out. Resorts. Camps. Trail maintenance. Raft trips. Climbing. Biking. Kiteboarding. Web design. Eco-internships. Lord knows there’s enough to keep ya’ll busy.